


Too Fondly to be Fearful

by Jinxed_Ink



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stardust, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Canon-Typical Warnings, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, Multi, minor non-canonical character death, other minor pairings - Freeform, witch Laurent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-04-24 18:53:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14361519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxed_Ink/pseuds/Jinxed_Ink
Summary: Since his miraculous escape from the assassination attempt that saw almost his entire family dead and his uncle on the throne, Laurent has spent the past ten years in hiding, as a member of a witches’ coven, honing his magic and trying to find a way to restore Auguste to the throne of Vere.Six of those ten years have been spent with Damen at his side, bound to him by deep an ancient magic, first as an ally and then as a lover.When Theomedes dies, their lives are thrown into upheaval: it is decreed that the new ruler of Akielos will be, among those who bear Theomedes’ blood, the first one to find the red stone that represents the Power of Akielos, which was thrown to the heavens and has brought down a star to the earth with it as it fell.Together, they embark on a quest to find the stone, in a race against Kastor, but they are not the only ones searching, for it is said that whoever consumes the heart of a living star will gain powers beyond all reckoning.





	1. Chapter 1

“I don’t like this,” Damen said, shouting to be heard above the rushing wind, “We need to seek shelter.”

Laurent seemed to be considering this, tilting his head back to peer at the darkening sky, at the clouds racing by above their head, spinning in an ever-tightening circle. “There’s caves up against the mountainside.” 

“Yes. I remember them,” Damen said, warmth curling in his stomach at the memory of what exactly had transpired there, in the cool darkness, against the stone. “But they’re an hour away.” And it would take them further from their destination. 

Laurent still had his face turned up to the sky, his gaze sharp and focused. “I think we can make it, if we hurry.” And without looking back, he turned off the main path, up a winding way sneaking among the jagged rocks.

Damen lingered, uncertain, and Laurent paused after a few paces, looking back at him over his shoulder, arching a slender eyebrow with an imperious air. 

“If we get struck by lightning, I’ll be very upset with you,” Damen said mildly, and went after him. 

The deluge started when they were halfway up the path. No thunder, yet, or lightning, just a wild, whistling wind and rain like buckets of water were being dumped on their head. It made the stone slick and treacherous underfoot, and at one point, Laurent slipped and crashed back into Damen, who had to brace himself with one hand against the trunk of a slender tree, and wrap his other arm around Laurent’s waist to keep them both from falling down the mountainside.

“I told you so,” Damen muttered in Laurent’s ear. He was wet and cold in his arms, and, now that they were no longer in danger of falling, Damen took advantage of their closeness to rub his hands up and down Laurent’s sides, ineffectually trying to warm him up.

Laurent turned his head to look at him, face pale and lips tinged with blue. “Shut up,” he said, but it was weary, and lacked his usual bite.

They made their slow, labored way up the mountain, ankle-deep in rushing water, wincing every-time thunder clapped and lightning flashed, until they crested into a plateau, the caves in sight. Damen relaxed, and felt Laurent do the same beside him. 

He didn’t realize what was descending upon them, for a few, precious seconds: the clap of wings was like thunder, the piercing cry like the wind through the trees. 

Then he realized the absurdity of it - thunder, with no lightning to precede it, and looked up.

A black, hulking shape against the sky, wings spread wide and spanning twenty feet, the griffin cast a shadow that would’ve obliterated the sun, had it not been already hidden by the storm. As it was, it was a shadow upon a shadow, black on black, and it was descending upon them, talons extended and beak open in another sharp, keening scream.

Laurent grabbed for Damen’s hand, running for the caves, but they were too far away. The beast would be upon them before they reached them - and there was no guarantee they’d find one with an entrance small enough to keep them safe from its attack, anyway.

“Go,” he shouted at Laurent, and stood his ground, unsheathing his sword. It was madness - to draw iron so high up, during a thunderstorm, was courting disaster. But no arrow could ever fly true in this wind.

Laurent was still beside him, hissing out Veretian curses, but refusing to leave Damen’s side, ignoring any attempts to shove him away, and making his stand there, empty hands raised and eyes sharp. 

The beast was frenzied, Damen realized as it came close enough for them to see the shine in its eyes and the red of his tongue. It must’ve been caught by surprise by the storm as well, maybe even injured. 

A moment later, it was upon them.

It must’ve perceived Laurent as the lesser threat, because he attacked Damen first, a hundred and sixty pounds of flesh and muscle inexorably pushing him into the ground, claws sinking into the meat of his shoulder, beak snapping just shy of his head, as Damen angled his sword up and into the creature’s chest, holding it at bay with his blade as much as he could.

He would not last long.

Lighting crackled and lit up the sky, and struck the earth just a few meters shy of them, a white, hissing streak that left the air thick with the scent of rain, and ozone, and blood. 

Laurent shouted something, the words snatched away by the winds, and Damen heaved up, and again, and again, hot slick ichor rushing down from his sword onto his hands, until he managed to dislodge the claws from his flesh.

They came free in a cold, nauseating rush, and thunder covered his screams as he rolled away, free of the griffins paws and beak, safe for a moment longer. 

He left the sword embedded in the creature’s gut and climbed onto his knees, then to his feet, only a dagger in his hand. 

For a moment, he was sure they would die there. 

And then he saw Laurent.

He must’ve been hit, when the griffin had descended upon them: half of his face was red and purple and mottled with bruises, but he stood straight, his teeth bared in a grimace, all of him held in coiled, quivering tension. His hands were no longer raised: he kept them at his sides, curled into fists so tight his knuckles had gone as white as bone. His eyes were squeezed shut, and Damen almost thought, for a wild moment, that he had closed them because he could not bear to watch the griffin tear into him. But then Laurent opened them, and they were a calm, steely blue. 

He looked like the coldest spot in the storm, like he was absorbing all the energy raging around them, and harnessing it, and turning it outward. And then lightning shone overhead, blindingly bright, and stayed there, impossibly, suspended in the sky, and Damen understood.

“Step away,” Laurent said, and his voice was measured, but it carried, above the wind and the rain and the cries of the wounded beast. “Damen, step away, I can’t risk hitting you, too.”

And Damen, numbly, stumbled a few paces further, so that he no longer stood between Laurent and the griffin. 

And the lightning struck true.

***

Laurent’s head was pounding, and he felt sore and slick with sweat, his cheek pressed to the steady rise and fall of Damen’s chest. He wondered, vaguely, if he’d been convinced to indulge in drink, and was now feeling the effects.

On an instinct ingrained by habit, he turned to press a quick kiss to Damen’s shoulder, the fabric of his tunic rough against his lips. That was strange. He didn’t usually sleep with his clothes on, not unless it was the depth of winter. 

Still keeping his eyes closed - he knew from experience what agony opening them would bring - he curled himself into his lover’s side, and felt the answering shift from Damen. Big, warm fingers started combing gently through his hair, soothing his aching head. “Gods be praised,” Damen murmured, “you had me frightened for a moment there, my love.”

Oh. _Fuck_. Awareness returned to him; memories came tickling back slowly, then all at once, in an incoming flood. The keening screech of the griffin, the flap of massive wings. 

The clap of thunder overhead. 

“I harnessed lightning,” Laurent said, voice marveling. Halvik would have his head, if she ever found out. 

“You did,” Damen confirmed, “it was awe-inspiring.” And then: “But please don’t do it again. My heart can’t take it.”

Laurent risked opening his eyes, just so that he could regard Damen with the cold, unimpressed look that statement deserved. “You’re starting to sound like Auguste.”

With his eyes open, Laurent could see that they must have reached the caves, as they were huddled up against cool gray rock, shielded from the rain and the worst of the wind,. This cave was shallower than most, a natural alcove in the mountainside, lightly shadowed; dark enough that the marks on Damen’s wrists gave off a faint, silvery light. 

“Perhaps it is not your brother who worries too much,” Damen said after a long moment, “perhaps you are too reckless.”

“I am not reckless. I always calculate my odds very carefully.”

“And then do the dangerous thing anyway.” 

Laurent opened his mouth to retort, and then lightning flashed outside, and illuminated the dark stain on Damen’s shoulder. “Here you are, complaining about me frightening you,” Laurent said, “and you didn’t even tell me you were injured.”

“It’s nothing. A scratch. It’s stopped bleeding already.”

“I’ll take a look at it.” Laurent did not wait for further objections before he unlaced the front of Damen’s tunic and pushed it off to expose the wound to the air. The fabric was sticky with blood, stuck fast to the skin of the shoulder, and Laurent and to work it off carefully, as Damen winced.

The wound was, indeed, shallow. It had scabbed over in the time between their altercation with the griffin and Laurent’s awakening, but the scab remained clinging to the tunic, and the cut re-opened, bleeding sluggishly. The skin around it was red and inflamed. 

Laurent poked at it experimentally, and Damen’s face went ashen.

“How long have I been out?”

“I don’t know.” And, at Laurent’s raised eyebrows: “A few hours.”

“You fucking idiot.” Laurent tried to stand, the world swayed around him, and he though better of it, electing instead to crawl towards where their packs were leaned against a wall. “It would serve you right if I left you to die of infection,” he said, even as he dug out the jar of ointment and started spreading it over the wound with quick, utilitarian gestures.

“I was a little preoccupied.” 

“With _what_?”

“You weren’t waking up!”

Laurent breathed in deeply, forcibly reminded himself that lecturing Damen was about as effective as lecturing the mountainside, and focused on his task. The ointment was golden in color, and gave off a faint, pleasantly spicy scent. Already, the skin around the wound was less swollen, and the color more natural, and the scab started forming again under Laurent’s eyes. In a few hours, the cut would be well on the way to being completely healed, provided Damen wasn’t an idiot about it and opened it again.

“We should stop by Paschal’s again, on our way back home,” Damen said casually. “We’re running low on ointment.” 

Laurent made a noise of assent, low in his throat. “We should probably make an effort to get into less scrapes,” he commented after a while, wiping his fingers on his face, which must’ve been covered in bruises, if the way it ached every time he spoke was any indication. “Our finances would benefit from it, if nothing else.”

“I think we both know the likelihood of _that_ ever coming to pass,” Damen said with a small smile. He made to push himself upright from his half-sprawl, but stilled at Laurent’s warning glare.

“We might as well rest,” Laurent said. Though he was stronger with every passing minute, he still felt dizzy. And the less Damen jostled that arm, the better. “I can lay the barrier.”

“It’s probably for the best. It must be nearly evening, by now, and I would not relish going out in this weather.” 

The thunderstorm had calmed somewhat, but it was still raining heavily, and the sky was too dark for Laurent to tell how late in the day it was. 

He set the barrier: a circle of flat, shimmering blue stones he had charmed to repel foes and raise alarm when another witch attempted to break through them. 

“Whatever shall we do,” Damen drawled, once the task was completed, raising his uninjured arm so that Laurent could curl up against his side, as he had before, “alone, in this cozy space, while it rains outside?”

Laurent gave him a pointed look, though its effectiveness was tempered somewhat by the smile that he felt lurking at the corners of his mouth. “It would be best for you not to jostle that arm.”

Damen slipped his hand up Laurent’s tunic, rubbing circles into the sensitive skin of his side with large, warm fingertips. “We could be careful,” he murmured. “We needn’t jostle anything at all.”

Laurent huffed out a breath of laughter. “Additionally, right now I couldn’t get it up if my life depended on it.”

“Ah,” Damen said, “that might indeed be an issue.” He bent his head and pressed a slow, tender kiss to Laurent’s forehead, running his hand up and down the notches of his spine in a soothing caress. “What do you want to do? Sleep some more? I can get us a blanket.”

“Yes to the blanket. No to more sleep.” A distant, thrumming kind of energy was starting to build up underneath his skin, the kind one felt after a prolonged sickness, when one is well enough to desire movement, and not strong enough to be able to sustain it.

Damen obliged, shifting out from their embrace to get their shared blanket from the packs. It was ancient, one side patched over with mismatched fabrics - cotton and wool and the occasional bit of velvet. It was warm, though, and thick, and the other side was made of wolf fur, well-kept and warm. 

“Well, then,” Damen asked, slipping his arm back around Laurent’s body and squeezing briefly, “what shall we do?”

“I’d like a story.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Even with his eyes on the cave’s entrance and not on Damen’s face, Laurent could see, in his mind, the precise shape of Damen’s smile in that moment, the gentle curve of it.

“One I have not heard before. I know you’ve been holding on to a few.”

“I’m running out, by now,” Damen admitted ruefully, “You make me wish I’d paid more attention to my tutors, as a boy.”

“Very well, then,” he continued, after a pause in which Laurent arranged himself more comfortably against his chest. “There once lived, in Isthima, the most beautiful maiden to ever walk the earth, one said to be more beautiful still than the goddess if love and beauty herself. Her name was Laurentine.” 

Damen was lucky he was injured. “Shut up! It was _not_!” 

“I thought you hadn’t heard this story before. As I was saying, Laurentine was unfathomably beautiful, with long, thick hair like spun gold and eyes like the sea on a clear day and fine alabaster skin and pink, lush lips.” Here, Damen paused to stroke his fingers over Laurent’s mouth.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Laurent said, “especially not after _Laurentine_. It is a terrible name.”

“The hearts of all those who laid eyes on Laurentine were struck with love for her, for she was beautiful enough for them to ignore her character, which was prickly and unpleasant.”

“You’re being overly generous in the estimation of your own wit.”

“Be quiet, or I won’t finish the story.”

Laurent sighed, nestling closer into Damen’s collarbone, and closed his eyes. It was a good story, even with Damen’s unhelpful additions. They had just gotten to part where the heroine was tasked with retrieving a casket of beauty from the goddess of spring, when he found himself drifting, warm and weightless, and the echo of his lover’s voice followed him in his sleep.

The next morning dawned clear and bright. Laurent stumbled on unsteady legs onto the short, yellow grass outside the cave, slowly growing reacquainted with the feeling of standing upright after almost a full day and night curled up in cramped quarters.

They were on a rocky outcropping, far away from the top of the mountain, but that did not matter: they did not need to reach the top. The carcass of the griffin Laurent had killed was nowhere in sight; probably, it had been washed off by the previous day’s rains. The storm didn’t seem to have disturbed anything else of note, a relief. Heavy rains could cause rockfalls. 

“It’s still early,” Damen said, “if we hurry and make good time, we might be able to finish the descent before nightfall.”

“Yes,” Laurent said, fighting the irrational urge to linger. “We should go.” He breathed in deeply, the cold hair pricking at his lungs like shards of glass, and allowed himself a brief moment to simply relish the sun on his face, the warmth and weight of Damen’s hand on his shoulder. 

They set off. It was a hour’s trek, give or take, and gravel crunched and shifted underfoot as they walked, and smooth, slippery stones lurked in the grass. Once, Damen stumbled over a hidden rock, overbalanced and almost fell, and Laurent rushed to him to support his weight.

“We’re even now,” he murmured, in the scant space between them.

Damen huffed out a breath, halfway between amused and annoyed, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind Laurent’s ear. “Will you ever stop keeping score?” 

Laurent laughed and slipped out of what had turned into a loose embrace, and set off down the path again. “If you know me at all, you know the answer to that.”

“You can’t fault a man for hoping.” Damen said, and Laurent did not have to look at him to know he was casting his gaze sky-ward.

It was not much further. Soon, they came to a lighting-struck pine, ducked behind it, walked half a dozen paces, and they were there.

The flowers were incandescent in the sunlight, bright as a dying star, and they were swaying with the breeze, occasionally colliding against each other with high, lovely chimes, so that it seemed like the entire meadow had been blanketed with ringing bells. 

“It doesn’t matter how many times we come here,” Damen said quietly, “I will never grow used to the sight.” 

“Me neither,” Laurent admitted, his voice so soft he wasn’t sure for a moment wether Damen had even heard him, until he felt Damen’s fingers curl around his own, and tilted his head to see his lover’s knowing smile.

They kissed each other there, to the sweet, lilting song of the grove of glass flowers.

“We should get started,” Laurent said at length, pushing gently at Damen’s shoulders to separate them. 

He picked his way carefully into the field, mindful not to step on the glass. The flowers would not break easily, preserved by magic so ancient it outdated the memory of all but the very oldest of being. Still, they were to be treated gently, and with respect, as they had a will of their own, steeped in the very essence of Faerie. 

He knelt, Damen beside him, and went to work.

He first chose a snowdrop, pale and green and perfect. Despite having been exposed to the sunlight all morning, the glass was cool to the touch, not searingly hot as it should’ve been. He ran his fingers over the white petals and the fragile stem, silent and coaxing, until the flower was swaying in his hands with a force that had nothing to do with the wind. Only then did he give a quick, gentle tug, and the snowdrop snapped from its roots, and came free in Laurent’s grip. He checked the state of the stem, and was pleased to find it gently rounded, as though sanded smooth. 

He passed the flower off to Damen, who wrapped it in velvet and put in their pack.

Next, he moved to a rose, the deep, dark red of a beating heart. He bent to it, stroking and murmuring, whispering praise, but the flower remained unresponsive to his touch. He left it behind with a small pang. It was worth a king’s ransom. Halvik had a rose like that, and it was the crowning glory of her collection, though she often bragged that, in her youth, she’d once found a flower more precious still, so precious she’d exchanged it for the lands where the coven now lived. 

His third attempt was on a violet, and he was halfway through when he felt a cold weight settle behind his ear. He turned and glared balefully at Damen, who had apparently grown bored with watching Laurent work.

“What?” he asked, smiling. “You’re not the only one here who can pick a flower.”

“You cannot just give this to me,” Laurent said, instinctively bringing up a hand to tuck it more securely behind his ear. “It is ancient magic. It demands a fair price.”

“Then I’ll trade it for a kiss,” Damen said, coming closer and putting his fingers to Laurent’s face, ostensibly to help him adjust the flower, but he quickly abandoned the task in favor of stroking the arch of Laurent’s cheekbone with his thumb; a slow, measured back and forth. 

“The most common of these flowers is worth a chest full of silver and gold,” Laurent said. 

“And so?”

“I fair price, I said. Not something I would give you for free.”

Damen was silent for a few moments. “I never want to ask you for something that you would not give me freely.” 

Laurent felt something unclench in his chest at the words, though they were nothing he hadn’t heard before, dozens of times, and turned his head in Damen’s hand to press a kiss to his warm, calloused hand. “Something I would not give you often, then.” 

Damen spent a few moments longer in deliberation. “A dance,” he said, eventually. “I’ll give it to you, and you’ll dance with me, at a time and place of my choosing.” 

“I’m still not sure it constitutes as a fair price,” Laurent said with a snort, though he was mostly doing it to be difficult, at this point, and he knew Damen knew it.

“I do know something of magic,” Damen said, “the price has to be fair to me. It does not matter whether you think my offer too generous.”

“All right, then,” Laurent said, “I accept. The flower you picked, for a dance with me.”

“At a time and place for my choosing.”

“Yes.” 

“And a kiss?” Damen asked, smiling so brightly it almost hurt to look at him.

“Too late,” Laurent said archly, “the bargain is made.”

“You did say you would kiss me for free,” Damen countered, moving his hand from Laurent’s face to his hair, and pulling him closer, slowly. 

“We have to get back to work, unless we want to spend another night in a cave instead of in our bed.”

“You call that thing a bed-”

“It has blankets and a mattress and we sleep in it,” Laurent pointed out, “what else would I call it?” Then, before Damen had time to respond: “I thought you wanted to kiss me.”

Damen laughed, a low, rumbling thing, and used the hand in Laurent’s hair to tilt his head back. “Now you’re just using your sway over me to win our argument.”

“Is it working?” They were impossibly close now, so close that Laurent could feel every puff of Damen’s breath against his face, so close that he could see nothing but the warm, gold-flecked brown of Damen’s eyes. 

“Yes,” Damen breathed, and then, suddenly, he drew back, leaving Laurent cold and wanting. “But as you so helpfully pointed out, we have to get back to work.”

***

The lord of the white cliffs was dying.

Nikandros stood at the foot of his bed, arranged with the rest of the Kyroi, his right hand balled into a fist, watching him struggle for each labored breath, and filled his lungs with the thick scent of incense. They’d been piling the braziers for days, as though they could cover the encroaching smell of death. 

Kastor, his son, knelt at the foot of the bed, his strong, brown hand wrapped around his father’s fragile, yellowed fingers. The lady Jokaste, who was Kastor’s consort, stood behind him, and held herself stiffly, in a pale gray gown and with her golden hair loose down her back, not a stitch of ornament or paint on her, as though she were halfway in mourning already. 

Nikandros knew his duty. And he knew himself. He knew he would see that duty through. 

The knowledge was no shield against the fear, did nothing to lessen the cold sweat running in rivulets down his back and along his hairline, and the hot curl of shame that went with it. 

He watched as Kastor bent his head to his father one last time, ready to receive the bright, gleaming ruby, cut into a roaring lion’s head, that was the Power of Akielos. There would be nothing else to be done, once it was around his neck. 

Nikandros swallowed his fear and stepped forward. “Exalted,” he said, “Your son, Damianos, is alive.”

The room had already been silent, but there was a different quality to the stillness, after Nikandros spoke: it was the quiet of a brewing storm, of a great cat readying itself to pounce on its prey. 

It was Jokaste who broke it. “Shame on you, Nikandros of Delpha,” she said, stepping forward with her chin tilted up. She only came up to his shoulder, but still managed to give off the impression to be looking down at him as she came closer. “To mislead our lord, especially in this dark hour. To reopen old wounds.”

“My brother is dead,” Kastor choked out. Had Nikandros not known him as he did, he would’ve mistaken the expression on his face for sorrow, or anger. As it was, he knew it was fear. “He’s been dead for years.”

“He lives,” Nikandros repeated. “Magic binds him fast, but he’s not dead. And he has as much a right to the throne as you do.”

Kastor made to speak again, fury contorting his handsome features, but Theomedes waved a hand in the air, demanding silence. He still looked like a king, even pale and hollowed-out as he was. “Do you have proof of your claims?”

“I do.” Nikandros opened his fist, and showed what lay in his palm. “I saw him, and he gave me this.” Damen’s golden pin, that he had worn every day of his life, the eye of the lion a shining red stone, chipped away from the Power of Akielos itself. 

There was a moment longer of shocked silence, then the Kyroi broke out in whispers behind him. Jokaste, gray-faced, gripped her husband’s shoulder until the knuckles of her slender hand turned white. Kastor’s eyes were shining, black as coal. He was ready to hurl out accusations, it was plain to see, but he bit them back. The same magic that governed the Power of Akielos also governed the pins the heirs wore. For Nikandros to pick one up without permission of the rightful owner would’ve been worse than treason. 

He would’ve been burned to the ground where he stood, the moment he touched it. 

“Forgive me, Exalted, for not telling you before now. He made me swear I would keep it a secret.” Already, Nikandros was feeling the effects of breaking his oath: his limbs felt heavy, and deep chill that had nothing to do with fear was spreading in his chest. It would only get worse, until Damen deemed him forgiven. 

Theomedes heaved out a weary sigh. “That boy,” he said, “has always been remarkably thick-headed.” He was silent for a long, drawn-out moment, and then he gestured to one of the slaves lingering against the white stone walls. “You,” he ordered, “Open that window.”

The slave obeyed. He was one of Kastor’s, blue-eyed Kallias, with golden cuffs not wide enough to disguise the bruising around his slender wrists. He retreated quickly, once his task was completed, keeping his eyes downcast and giving his master a wide berth. Even when he was back against the wall, his perfect poise was shaken: his breath was too fast, and there was a slight tremble in his lithe limbs. 

Theomedes beckoned Nikandros closer. He seemed to have regained some of his strength. Perhaps it was the knowledge that his youngest son still lived, or perhaps it was the last flare before the flame of his life was extinguished forever. “Help me rise,” he ordered, looking at Nikandros and at Kastor.

Wordlessly, they did, each taking one side, and helped him walk the half-dozen paces that separated him from the window. Theomedes remained standing in front of it for another few seconds, looking at the starry sky where it stretched above the city, and breathing in the night air. Then he freed his arm from Kastor’s grasp, so that it was only Nikandros who was keeping him upright, and lifted the golden chain from his neck. “Among those who bear my blood, to the one who retrieves the stone,” he said, his voice calm and carrying, the voice of a king, “I leave my blessing, and the throne of Akielos, and all which falls under its dominion.” 

He held it aloft, watching as the ruby spun back and forth, and then he brought his arm back, and threw the Power of Akielos into the air. 

It arced up, into the heavens, until it reached the point where Nikandros expected it would start to fall. It did not. It keep rising and rising, until it seemed it would strike down the stars themselves, until it connected, and started its descent.

***

Damen lounged on his side, looking down at Laurent, who was satisfyingly breathless and flushed, his eyes still a little wide, his mouth a pleasing, relaxed shape, and red, so red. The flower Damen had picked for him was still, improbably, tucked behind his ear, even after a morning spent working in the field and an afternoon going down a mountainside. It shone golden in the lamplight, casting warm, honey-colored prisms on his high cheekbones.

“Have you been struck mute by the sight of my beauty?” Laurent asked, after long, silent moments, a quirk to his brows.

“Yes.” It came out sounding helplessly honest.

“You do know that when you lean into your own ridiculousness, you spoil all my fun?”

“Yes,” Damen said with a small laugh, “it’s half the reason I do it.”

Laurent’s eyes shone, the color of a midday May sky. “What is the other half?”

Damen reached out his hand, and plucked the golden flower from behind Laurent’s ear. He ran its gleaming, unyielding petals along his reddened cheek, slowly, as slowly as he could, relishing the half-suppressed shiver, and brought his slow caress to an end at his mouth. He teased the trembling lips open, and dipped the cool glass inside. “To watch how you flush.”

Laurent had already been pink all over, but his skin darkened further, crimson spreading like a stain down his chest. With firm fingers, he gripped Damen’s wrist and pushed the flower away from his mouth, and Damen would have thought him displeased, had Laurent not kept his gaze, darkened with passion, fixed on him the whole time. Had he not said, solemn and steady: “Kiss me.”

Damen did. 

It was awkward, at first, the angle off, Damen’s arm still caught between their bodies. But then, Laurent made a sound low in his throat, his grip on Damen’s wrist loosening, so that Damen could wrap his arm around Laurent’s waist instead, his other hand coming up to cup his chin and tilt his head back.

They spent long moments like that, kissing; slow, deep kisses that were a prelude to nothing. Damen loved it when they were like this, their urgency spent, and nothing left between them but tenderness and a love so familiar it felt like slipping on a well-worn coat on a winter morning.

At length, Laurent sighed out against his mouth, lying down against the bedding and pulling Damen down along with him. His legs were open, his smooth, warm thighs a cradle for Damen’s hips. He sighed again when Damen pushed against him, blue eyes slipping closed and head tilting back against the pillows, the pale column of his throat exposed and shining with sweat. 

When he breached him, Damen found him sweet and yielding, and he moved into him with slow, measured strokes, one hand at the soft skin of Laurent’s hip, gently coaxing. Laurent made no sounds, not even at the climax, just occasionally gave one of those slow, lingering sighs that sounded as though they had been startled out of him. 

They stayed curled into each other for a long time, afterwards, trading kisses and caresses that became slower and slower as exhaustion came upon them. Eventually, Laurent, who was fastidious, pushed Damen away with an annoyed little noise and started rummaging around for the pitcher of water and a cloth. 

Damen laid back against the pillow and let him, until Laurent unceremoniously dropped a scrap of cold wet fabric on his chest. “I know you’re awake.”

Damen sighed and opened his eyes, grabbing the cloth in one hand and using it to clean Laurent’s stomach, and then flipped him over and wiped off the mess between his milky-white thighs, lingering with the cloth where he was most tender, until Laurent gave a tiny, hitching whimper of over-sensitivity. Damen bent to brush a soothing kiss over the small of his back, warm with a sort of pleased possessiveness. 

His ministrations must’ve proved satisfactory, because Laurent extended his hand for the cloth and toweled Damen down himself, instead of leaving him to attend to his own clean-up. 

Once he was done, Damen curled an arm around Laurent, and used his free hand to guide the fair head to the expanse of his shoulder. Laurent went easily, and, with a pleased little smile, curled up against Damen’s chest like a cat.

Damen fell asleep to the sound of his steady breathing. 

To his credit, Laurent tried to be quiet and unobtrusive as he crawled away from their shared pallet, some hours later, but the back of the wagon was a tight fit for two grown men, particularly if one of the men was Damen. His stealthy getaway involved far too many elbows in Damen’s ribs to go unnoticed.

“Where are you going?” Damen asked muzzily, as he propped himself up on one elbow. The ceiling of the wagon, he knew from experience, was too low for him to sit up properly. 

Laurent stilled when he heard his voice, and turned to look at him over his shoulder, his hand holding on to the latch. He’d already opened the door part of the way, and in the sliver of moonlight that shone through, he looked like the gilded icon of a saint, cold and remote, hewn from ivory and gold. 

“Something woke me up,” he said slowly. “I don’t know what it was.”

“The barrier?” Damen asked, searching in the half-shadows for his weapons. His sword was propped up between their cot and the wall, and there was a dagger underneath their pillows, at Laurent’s insistence. 

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like a threat.” A pause. “More like anticipation. Like the whole of Fearie is holding its breath.” And then he slipped out of the door. There was the sound of dead leaves and gravel crushed underfoot, and then nothing more. Not even the wind through the trees or the call of a nighttime bird. 

“Laurent?” Damen called, going after him. 

His lover was standing in the middle of the clearing, barefoot, wearing nothing but his rumpled bedclothes, head tilted up towards the sky and tension in the lines of his shoulders.

Damen gripped his sword tighter, for a moment, and then he followed the line of Laurent’s gaze, and looked up.

Above them, its tail arching through the heavens like a swathe of pale fire, a star was falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the poem by Sarah Williams "From the Old Astronomer (to his Pupil)"
> 
> The story Damen tells Laurent while they're in the cave is Eros and Psyche.
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr!](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An additional warning to the canon-typical ones, in this chapter there are ableist slurs directed at one of the characters, if you'd prefer to skip that, skip from "too bad" to "she'll fetch more". It's about three lines, and you won't lose anything major in terms of plot development.

The first thing Erasmus was aware of, upon waking, was the wild, burning pain in his thigh. The second thing, as he gingerly pushed himself onto his elbows, was the grainy, wet texture of the moist earth beneath him. 

_Earth._

In an instant, Erasmus rolled onto his belly, mindless of the pulsing flares in his leg at the sudden movement, choking. Stars could not vomit, but he laid there for a long time, retching emptily onto the grass. Once the fit had passed, he heard a delicate, female voice to his right.

“Are you hurt, brother?”

He turned his head. Lykaios was sitting up, braced on one hand, her long, pale hair loose and disheveled on her bare shoulders, skimming the tops of her breasts. With her free hand, she clutched the tattered remains of her tunic to her chest, her grip white-knuckled. With her legs splayed out in front of her, she was ungraceful in a way he had never known her to be. It took Erasmus a moment to see why: her left leg was bent wrongly, at the calf. Broken. 

She had been a dancer, before the fall. The best among them. 

Grief was a well-spring in his chest, overbrimming, but he swallowed back his tears, and curled his hand into a fist, squeezing until he felt his fingernails pierce the skin. He no right to cry for her lost art, when she sat straight-backed and serene. 

He looked down at his own leg, suddenly afraid of what he would see: the flash of white bone, lurid against the golden spilt of his blood and mangled flesh. He had never known pain, before this, and had no framework for it. 

Welts covered the soft skin of his upper thigh, red and puckered and ugly. They marred his beauty, the best thing about him. The only thing he had to recommend him, save for his voice. But it was nothing worse than that, and he told himself that this was good fortune, and that he ought to be thankful for in. 

Just below the marks, a thick chain of pure, shining gold was bound fast around his leg. A red jewel hung from it, heavy and hot against Erasmus’ thigh. It was shaped like a fierce beast of the earth, a lion, he thought, as he traced the gaping maws idly, and the lolling tongue. 

“It is not so bad,” he said at length, once he realized he had not answered Lykaios’s question.

“Good,” she said softly. Then, looking at his leg: “It is quite a way up your thigh. If you tug your skirts down, you should be able to cover it.”

He complied, hastily. “It is very ugly to look at, isn’t it?” he asked, dejected. 

“The marks will fade, with time,” she said, though he could see the doubt in her dark blue eyes. They had had no need to learn about such things as scars, in their far-flung home in the heavens. “I’m more worried about the jewel. I’ve seen the greed of mortals, and what they will do for gold and gems.” She was silent for a long moment, in which she did not look at him. “I’ve also seen what they will do for beauty. We are not safe here, brother.”

Erasmus swallowed down the acid burn of his fear. She was taking this calmly, and he could do no less. Still, neither of them voiced the worst of the dangers they faced: the witches, and what they would do for the beating, shining heart of a living star. “Can you stand, sister?”

Lykaios shook her head. “Not by myself. And I don’t think I could walk, even if you helped me up.” 

“Perhaps if we bound the leg,” Erasmus ventured, looking at their surroundings for the first time. They were in a perfect circle ringed by tall, leafy trees, and for a moment he thought it was a clearing, until he took a better look at the overturned earth and broken branches, and understood that they had leveled a part of the forest to the ground, when they’d landed. “That’s what mortals do with broken bones, isn’t it?”

“I think we need to splint it, also.” 

Erasmus nodded. “Yes.” He stood, gangly as a newborn colt, and made his unsteady way to a thin, long branch. It was broken jaggedly on both ends, and when he touched his finger to the tip, it came away bloody. He looked at it with morbid interest. The cut was thin and jagged, and it burned, though not nearly as much as his thigh did. 

He attempted to smooth the end of the branch on a rock, but it only seemed to splinter more. 

“Try using a leaf,” Lykaios advised. It worked a little better, though it was not enough to sand the wood into smoothness. Eventually, he just tore strips off his tunic and wrapped them around both ends, so that they would not cut into his sister’s flesh when he splinted her leg. 

He knelt next to her in the mud and took her leg into his lap. She tried not to show the pain, but this close, he could see how pale she was, how she’d bitten her bottom lip so hard that there was a single golden line across the middle, stark against the white of her skin. 

He used more strips from his clothing to bind the branch to her leg. By the time he was done, his tunic hung loosely from one shoulder, quite as tattered as hers, leaving half of his chest exposed. She tried to stand, took a few, halting steps and stumbled back to her knees with a scream. 

He rushed to her side, but she waved him away. “We need a crutch, as well,” she told him, breathing harshly, through gritted teeth.

“Yes,” he said, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner, “of course.” He fashioned one out of a Y-shaped branch, and then she was able to walk, leaning half her weight on the crutch, and the other half on him. 

“Which way?” he asked. 

She looked around, then picked a direction. Erasmus did not ask her if she knew where they were going, or if she’d chosen completely at random. Hopefully, if they walked long enough, they would come to a road, and if they walked long enough on that road, they would come to a village. It would be dangerous, but they needed to find someone trained in medicine, who could treat Lykaios’s leg.

He tried not to think past that. 

Pressed together, the two stars made they silent, halting way out of the crater of their own making, and disappeared into the trees.

***

The palace at Arles was in upheaval, the likes of which they had not seen in ten years. Since the night the king had been slaughtered, and all the royal heirs besides, save for one.

Orlant had not even been twenty, at the time, newly made a palace guard, and he had survived the night by huddling in a shadowed corridor, while people screamed and choked and died all around him, until a slender hand had closed around his arm, and he’d looked up, startled, into the steady blue eyes of the youngest of the royal grandchildren. 

It was not quite as dire, now. No one was dying, for one thing, at least not yet. But there were rumors flying throughout the jeweled halls: the king of Akielos was dead. His son, Damianos, was alive. 

A star had fallen, somewhere in Faerie. The first in close to five-hundred years.

The King wanted it. If you found it, he would pay you your weight in gold. He would marry your daughter. He would name you his heir.

The King wanted the star so that he could marry it. The King wanted the star because the Akielons wanted it, and he would do anything to keep it from them. The King wanted the star because he knew an arcane magic ritual that would allow him to bring back to life his nephews, so that one of them could be his heir. 

The King wanted to gobble up the star’s golden heart, and live forever. 

The last one, whispered with circumspect glances behind fans and hands and passed along like a dangerous, sharp-edged secret, was probably the truth. 

Well, fuck. 

Laurent would have a fit.

***

Every step was agony.

They walked through the morning, and into the afternoon, until they came to a road - more of a path, really, only wide enough for the two of them to walk abreast - made of small white stones, shadowed on both sides by tall, leafy trees. 

It was, she supposed, a beautiful day. The sky was a wide, unbroken blue above them, and the wind was no more than a soft breeze, which played with the hems of their clothes, and made the fragrant blossoms in the trees sway and dance.

But all this gentle beauty did nothing but increase the sense of wrongness splitting her breast apart. She was not supposed to be in pain, walking an sharp stones that pierced her feet. She was not supposed to be hot, with sweat running in rivulets down her nape and the back of her dress. 

She was not supposed to be looking up at the sky.

She schooled her features, the way she’d learned to do since she’d been newly birthed, and turned her eyes to the road, focusing until everything disappeared but the stones, the breeze, and the fire licking up her leg every time she moved. 

She would not break. 

If only because Erasmus was clearly holding himself together by a thread, the same as she. And she felt, with absolute certainty, that if one of them broke down, the other would not be able to put the pieces back together. 

Eventually, the sun went down, and night came. It was even harder like this, as they walked bathed in their mother’s gentle glow. It would be enough to tilt her head back to catch a glimpse of their siblings, curved around each other in their eternal dance.

She pressed her lips together and forced herself onwards.

At her side, Erasmus gasped quietly. She turned her head, and saw in him what he must’ve seen in her: he gave off the faintest silver light, barely enough to illuminate their surroundings, but enough to turn them into a beacon. 

“Keep walking,” she hissed, through the panic clogging her throat. 

They did not go far. 

She thought, grimly, as the men melted out of the shadows, that they were lucky it was mere mortals who found them first, and not the witches.

“Let us pass,” she said, with a confidence she did not feel. There were only three men: not such terrible odds, had she and Erasmus not been injured and exhausted from a day on the road.

The man in the middle, who was black-haired and black-eyed, and who might’ve been handsome, had he not been leering at them so crudely, stepped forward. “I do not think so, pretty.” 

She raised her chin. These were mortals, rough and unrefined and base, and they did not deserve her submission. “I will not ask again.”

He backhanded her across the face. 

She fell to her knees, her already precarious balance broken, clutching at her cheek in shock. She had never been hit before. 

“Shit, Belarius,” said the man on the left, who was thin and reedy, with reddish-brown hair that hung tangled and matted over his face. “How many times do I have to tell you? Not the face.”

Belarius grunted. “Bruises fade. Besides, I didn’t hit her that hard.”

She swallowed down the scream of pain that was tearing its way up her throat. The fall had jostled her injured leg.

Where was Erasmus? 

She looked around for him, her heart rabbit-fast, as though it would leap out of her chest. He was frozen in the shadows, his eyes wide and frightened. _Run_ , she mouthed at him, but he shook his head, and slowly, as though each movement was unmeasurably costly to him, he stepped close to her, and helped her rise. 

“Too bad,” the red-haired man said, looking at her with his lip curled in disgust. “She’s crippled.” 

The third man, a ruddy-faced blond who had, until then, done nothing more than observe the proceedings with his arms crossed, stepped forward with a nasty little grin. “It’s not as if they’ll need her to be able to walk. Or to stand. Or to do anything with her legs except spread them.”

_They?_

“Do you think we could sample the wares? Since they’re already damaged?” This was Belarius, looking at the red-haired man. 

“She’ll fetch more on the auction block if she’s not pregnant with your bastard.”

Belarius turned his considering gaze to Erasmus. 

“ _He_ ’ll fetch more if he’s not bloodied up by your cock,” the ruddy-faced man cut in. “Stop trying to fuck the merchandise, Bel, and put aside money to pay for a whore, like the rest of us.”

Lykaios swallowed. She knew about slavers, in the vague sort of way she knew anything about the world below. They had made it clear they would not rape them, at least. They’d wait until they got to a major city and get someone who would pay handsomely for the privilege, but that bought them a little time, if nothing else.

And they did not seem to know what they were.

It was not what she wanted to do. What she wanted was to rake her nails across Belarius’ eyes and gouge them out, for daring to look at her like that. She wanted to take up a knife and cut of the ruddy-faced man’s tongue, for speaking of her and her brother like they were cuts of meat to be sold at the market. She wanted to get the red-haired man on the ground and stomp on his legs until he could do nothing but crawl across the earth like the worm he was. 

But what she did was catch Erasmus’ wide, terrified eyes and shake her head minutely. It was to look at them all in the eyes, and extend her hands for the binding.

***

Damen woke to find Laurent gone from his arms, the sheets where he’d lain cool to the touch. Warily, he rose, slipping out the back of the wagon.

The previous night, after they’d watched the falling star, Laurent had returned to their pallet and pulled Damen on top of him, welcomed him between his spread legs with a passion almost painful in its fierceness, and then, still wordless, he’d turned away from him. His breaths had been deep and even, but the tense line of his naked back had betrayed him: he had still been awake. 

Damen, confused and aching, had pulled Laurent into his arms, laid gentle kisses all over the white skin on his shoulders, until he’d felt him relax, fraction by fraction. 

Now, he walked around the wagon to find that Laurent had already set himself to the task of dismantling the camp. He paused in his work only long enough to press a bowl of fresh fruits and honey into Damen’s hands. “Eat quickly. If we make good time, we can reach the hills in a fortnight.”

“The hills?” Damen asked, stupidly, “What hills?”

“The ones where we live, Damianos,” Laurent snapped, not even bothering to look back at him while he hitched the horse to the wagon. “I would’ve thought that obvious.”

“We’ve been gone less than a month.”

Laurent did turn look at him, at that, staring pointedly at the bowl in Damen’s hands with the sort of cold annoyance that implied that Damen would start moving, or he would be left to make his own back. Damen took the hint. He placed his breakfast on the driver’s seat of the wagon, and went to help Laurent.

“I’ll eat while we travel.”

“Good thinking.”

In the four years they’d been making this trip, they had never gone directly back to the coven, after the grove of glass flowers. They were merchants, ostensibly, making a tour of the major cities and markets to peddle their wares. In truth, while they did sell the glass flowers, their travels were as often as not convenient fronts. Laurent would drag them to back-alley taverns and village festivals, where they’d meet with any possible creature that walked under the sun, seeking a way to undermine the rule of the King of Vere. 

They traveled until sundown, that day, at the fastest pace they could set without dangerously exhausting the horse. Throughout the day, and even after they stopped, Laurent did not speak, beyond that which was strictly necessary to ensure the smooth setting of their camp, and handling of the horse and the wagon. 

He retired early, and curled himself on his side, facing away from Damen, and was asleep in moments.

The next day was much the same, as well as the day after that, and the one after that.

After almost a week of this, and of Laurent responding coldly to any of attempts at striking up a conversation, Damen attempted to approach in a different fashion. He went to him after dinner, slid his fingers into the short, soft hair at his nape, tilted his head back and slotted their lips together. 

Laurent let himself to be kissed graciously enough, opening his mouth for Damen to slip his tongue inside, and not shying away from his caresses, but he stayed tense and unmoving against Damen, a wall around him, as though he were simply allowing these things to happen to him, enduring them like a chore. 

Damen let go of him, feeling wretched, and Laurent turned away without a word. 

After that, he made no other attempts at breaking this strange mood Laurent had slipped into, until they were within an hour of the permanent encampment the witches of Laurent’s coven made their home in. 

As the winding mountain road crested and disappeared behind a well-known hill, Damen laid his fingers over Laurent’s where he gripped the reins tightly, and, gently, made him slow the horse to a standstill. “I would have you tell me what is going on.” 

“We’re going home,” Laurent said, not turning to look at him. His jaw was clenched. “I thought that was clear enough.”

“Obtuseness does not become you.”

Laurent’s fingers tightened over the reins, until his knuckles turned white and the horse tossed her head, neighing in annoyance. Damen could see the effort Laurent made to relax, until finally something unwound in his shoulders, and he turned his face to Damen’s. “I’m sorry,” he said, quietly, “I know I’ve been… withdrawn.”

“That’s one way of putting it, yes,” Damen said, with more heat than he’d intended.

“I am afraid,” he admitted, eventually, “because I think my uncle will go after the star.”

Gently, and slowly, Damen drew one of Laurent’s hands away from the reins, to hold it between both of his. He started massaging his palm, easing the tension away. “Why would he?”

“Do you know what happens, if a witch consumes the beating heart of a star?”

Eternal life, or as close to it as mortals could come. “But your uncle is not a witch.”

“I have magic,” Laurent said. He was digging his fingers into Damen’s palm, his grip so tight it hurt. “Why shouldn’t he? He’s lied about so many things.”

“We won’t let him get it,” Damen promised, bringing their entangled hands to his face, to press a kiss on Laurent’s pale fingers. “And even if, by some miracle, he finds it, we will kill him.”

“That will be impossible, if he has a star’s heart, at the height of its power. It will be centuries before he is mortal again. I cannot bear to wait centuries.”

“You won’t have to.”

They stayed like that a moment longer, and then Damen, who had never learned to leave tender spots well enough alone, added: “There’s more.”

“There’s more,” Laurent confirmed, pulling away. “ _Until the stars fall, and the moon loses her daughter._ ” He punctuated the words by brushing a slender finger over the silver makings on Damen’s wrist. 

Damen’s heart stuttered in his chest. “You know that’s not what keeps me by your side.”

There was something brittle in the frosty blue of Laurent’s eyes, in the cruelly repressed curves of his mouth. “That is,” he said slowly, with deliberation, “quite literally what keeps you by my side.” 

Damen made to speak, but Laurent held up his hand. “No, listen to me. I know you will leave. It is your duty, and I will not begrudge you for it. And I do want you to be free. I just-” he broke off, and Damen could see the tension in his shoulders, the conscious effort it cost him to keep his eyes and voice level, “I will miss you, that’s all.”

“We’ll still be together. Or did you think I would simply go back to Akielos and never see you again?” 

“It won’t be like this. We won’t be able to see each other often, at least not until my uncle is defeated-”

“You know I will keep helping with that. I might even be more useful, with an army at my disposal.” Damen knew the danger in cutting off Laurent mid-sentence. But there was even greater danger, he felt, in letting him continue down this line of thought. 

“What I meant,” Laurent’s voice was growing harsher, as though he could drown out the truth in Damen’s words with the force in his own, “is that we’ll be apart for long stretches of time. I might be beautiful, and clever, but the royal palace at Ios will be full of beautiful, clever people who will be greedy for your attention, and who will be readily available, when I won’t be.”

“Laurent,” Damen said, “are you worried I will fall into bed with someone else? That won’t happen. I could never take pleasure in something that would hurt you.” 

“I’m not worried you will fuck someone else,” Laurent said, roughly. 

“What, then?” Damen turned Laurent’s words over in his mind.“Are you worried I will fall in love with someone else?”

Laurent, tellingly, said nothing. 

“Oh,” Damen said, blinking. “That’s even more absurd than the alternative.” And when Laurent continued, stubbornly, to stay silent: “Laurent, I want to marry you.” 

This, at last, gave Laurent pause. He held himself very carefully, tension in the lines of his shoulders and his jaw, looking at Damen with eyes that were very wide, and very blue. Apparently, marriage proposals could be added to the tally of things that could shock Laurent into silence.

At length, Damen said, with a laugh that sounded a touch strangled: “Questions like this one generally require an answer.”

“What question? You haven’t actually asked me anything.” The words felt rote. Damen knew him well enough to see what was happening; Laurent, not knowing how to conduct himself in front of this, was resorting to following an old, well-worn script. 

“I think I have.” 

“I’m terrible prospect, right now.” There was an edge of exasperation to Laurent’s voice. Good. He seemed to return to himself by increments, as he talked. “You have no guarantee I’ll triumph against my uncle. And even if I do, we’re already allies, you don’t need a marriage to cement that. You would be much better off finding yourself someone from Patras. Vask, at a stretch, though, of course, with my contacts, you won’t really need it.”

Helplessly, Damen found himself smiling, and he leaned froward, cupping Laurent’s face in the palm of his hand. Gently, he stroked the soft hollow beneath his eyes with his thumb, a slow back and forth. “So you do want to marry me?”

“Have you listened to a single word I’ve said?”

“I have, and not a single one of them was _no_.”

Laurent regarded him for a long, silent moment, then he sighed, and, slowly, turned his head to rest it into the crook of Damen’s neck, a sweet surrender. “If you’re so determined to commit political suicide as soon as you regain your position, I suppose I can’t stop you.” 

A ferocious kind of joy flared in Damen’s chest, so bright and golden where it pushed agains his ribs that it made breathing sharp and painful. He put his arms around Laurent’s back, and tilted his head so that his chin rested on top of Laurent’s fair curls, breathing in deep. “I love you,” he whispered, into Laurent’s hair, feeling, absurdly, an illicit thrill at saying the words, “I love you so much.” 

Laurent said nothing, but held him tighter, a tremor passing through him. 

The camp was silent and tense when they reached it, an atmosphere Damen was growing heartily tired of. There was no one outside in the packed dirt streets, despite it being the middle of the day, and the horses were all closed off in their pens. The only sign of life was the smoke curling lazily from the chimney of Halvik’s hut. 

Laurent and Damen shared an uneasy glance. 

“Let’s go home,” Damen suggested finally. “We’ll drop off our packs, and then we’ll talk to Halvik. See what this is about.”

Laurent gave their surroundings a grim look. “I’m fairly certain I know what this is about.” 

It had not occurred to Damen that the coven might want the star’s heart. He swallowed and nodded, pressing Laurent’s arm in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. The coven going after the star might be helpful to Laurent’s goals, in that it would keep it from the King of Vere’s hands, but stars were sentient. And Laurent wasn’t the sort of man to condone the murder of an innocent. 

‘Home’ was a white-washed, squat cottage they shared with Auguste, an arrangement that had been supremely awkward for all involved since Laurent had passed puberty and hit adulthood, and Damen had woken up one morning and realized that the haughty brat he’d first met had blossomed into an unparalleled beauty. 

The door had no lock - no witch would ever be fool enough to trespass into another witch’s domain, and the camp was well-guarded - so they just had to push the door open and they were in a cozy round room, with hardwood floor covered with well-worn rugs and a fire banked in the grate. Auguste was sitting on a pillow near the fireplace, and he was not alone.

“Old friend,” Damen exclaimed, rushing forward to embrace Nikandros, with so much fervor that he nearly toppled them both. 

“Damen,” Nikandros whispered, his hold on Damen’s upper arms bruisingly tight. “There is something I must tell you.” 

Damen drew back to look at him, noticing how pale his friend’s face was, how dark the bags under his eyes, how he had the gray ashes of deep mourning marking his cheeks and brows. “What is it?”, he asked, urgently, “What’s wrong?”

“Damen,” Nikandros said, “I think you had best sit down.”

Dimly, Damen was aware of Auguste rising and going to put his arms around his brother. “Laurent,” he heard, “Halvik said to go to her as soon as you returned. I’ll take you there, and we can let Damen and Nikandros talk in peace.”

***

“Theomedes’ dead, isn’t he?” Laurent asked, as he and Auguste set off the packed dirt path towards Halvik’s hut, which was at the centre of the encampment, and, being the biggest, also doubled as a great hall of sorts.

“Did one of your spies tell you this, or is this just you being uncanny?”

“Nikandros was dressed for heavy mourning. You would not have brought me away if it hadn’t been for the death a member of Damen’s family,” Laurent ticked off his arguments on his fingers as he spoke, “that means Theomedes or Kastor. Jokaste, at a stretch. But Nikandros would not have been in deep mourning for Kastor or Jokaste. So, Theomedes.”

Auguste paused a moment, giving his brother a piercing look. “Like I said,” he commented at length, “uncanny.”

“It’s called using your brain,” Laurent said loftily, sticking his chin in the air, “I’m sure you wouldn’t be familiar with the experience.”

Auguste jostled him playfully. “Already I am wondering why I ever felt sorrow at your absence.” 

“Liar,” Laurent retorted, jostling him right back. “You adore me.”

“That I do,” Auguste said, slinging an arm around his shoulders. He had to stand on tiptoe to press a kiss against the side of Laurent’s head, now, a fact which Laurent was extremely smug about. 

“Did you have a good trip?”

“It was adequate,” Laurent said, striving to keep a mild tone despite the way his chest was over-brimming with happiness.

“Was it?” Auguste asked, with a teasing glint in his eyes, “You’re smiling, little brother.”

“Damen got me a flower.”

“How is that note-worthy? He’s been plying you with gifts since you were twenty.”

“A glass flower,” Laurent specified, “He sold it to me for a dance.”

“And then?” 

“And then he asked me to marry him,” Laurent said, still scarcely believing it. 

“Ah.” There was complicated expression playing across Auguste’s features, a sort of sorrowful joy. 

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Auguste said, as they rounded the corner that would bring them in front of Halvik’s house, “I’m merely feeling my age. My little brother is a man now, and he has found love.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll happen for you too,” Laurent said, patting his arm, “You’re not that old yet. I’m sure we’ll find a girl willing to take you, so long as we provide you with a handsome dowry.”

“Ass,” Auguste laughed, pushing him towards Halvik’s door. “Go ahead. I’ll meet up with you later.”

The door was low enough that Laurent had to duck his head to past it. The room he stepped into was like his own main room, in that it was circular, with rug-covered floors and a large fireplace. However, it was much larger than his own. Much larger, indeed, than one would’ve thought possible, looking at the hut from the outside. 

The fire was burning in the grate: tall, crimson flames; and the air was full with the smells of burning wood and drying herbs, and the pungent stench of animal skins hung up to finish tanning.

Halvik was sitting on a tall wooden chair on an elevated platform, a smaller version of her throne at the center of the camp. When she saw him, she beckoned him closer, with a brisk, imperious gesture.

Laurent, who was subservient to no one, but had an healthy respect for the witch-queen, complied. “You called for me?”

“Obviously,” she said, in her voice like branches snapping in the wind, “or you wouldn’t be here. You know what I think of pleasantries, boy. Come closer.”

“If you dislike pleasantries,” Laurent pointed out, “you might just tell me what you wish to discuss, without making me ask.”

Halvik clucked her tongue. “Always so impatient,” she chided. 

Laurent, who was idling near the fire because he did not want to go sit at her feet, suppressed a scowl. “If it’s not urgent, I’d like a chance to have a bath and wash off a month’s worth of grime.”

He was halfway to the door, when Halvik said: “Wait.”

He paused, expectant. 

“A message came for you.”

He turned back to her, and let nothing but a kind of amused lassitude seep into his face, and his tone. “I’m assuming you listened to it.”

“I knew you’d say that.” She laughed, a loud, braying sound. “Now Keshel owes me five copper pieces.”

Laurent raised his brows, and stayed silent. 

“It came with a messenger,” she went on, when it became clear that, unless she spoke, she and Laurent would while the afternoon away in these exact positions, and neither of the would say a word.

“Messages generally do, yes.” Dryly. 

“Not one of the usual messengers. This one was young. Uppity. Very pretty. I’ve put him up with Keshel.”

“I didn’t think she went for the pretty ones. Am I in some danger?”

“This one’s too young for her. And too short.”

“And me?”

“You’re not too short. The King of Vere is going after the star.” The abrupt change of subject had been carefully calculated. Halvik was watching him keenly, looking for a hint of a reaction. 

“And you?” Laurent asked mildly, keeping his features flawlessly schooled. 

“That is a good way of wasting your magic and your sanity.” She huffed out a breath, her flinty black eyes shining. 

“That,” Laurent said pointedly, holding her gaze, “is not an answer.”

She smiled, a little. He had pleased her. Sharpness always did. “I’m not going after it. And neither are any of my girls.” 

That was a surprise. Laurent had expected that at least the youngest and most power-hungry members of the coven would make the attempt. “What if they go without your permission?” 

“They will be giving up their place in the coven. That holds for you, too, boy.” 

Laurent considered this. “I might go after the star,” he said, eventually, “but only to stop the Veretian King from getting it. I will not touch its heart.” 

Halvik looked at him, and for a long time, did not say anything. “You might even mean that, boy. But be careful; some temptations are too strong to resist. And stop thinking of the star as an ‘it’. It’s disrespectful, and will do you no favors.” And, before Laurent had a chance to react, she made a shooing motion. “Now off with you. Go get that bath you wanted. ” 

Laurent, with the peculiar mix of warmth and unsettlement that always accompanied audiences with Halvik, left the hut. Auguste was nowhere in sight, and since he judged he had given Nikandros ample time to break his grim news, Laurent turned his feet back to the direction of his house. 

All was silent once he got there, the main room empty and the door of the bedroom he shared with Damen closed. He pushed it open warily, and found his lover huddled on the edge of the bed, his face buried in his hands. 

He looked up when Laurent walked into the room. His eyes were red-rimmed, and there were tear-tracks on his cheeks. “My father is dead.”

Laurent stepped up to the bed, wordlessly, and opened his arms. Damen curled himself into his embrace, sobbing like a child, and Laurent was helpless to do anything but hold him steady against the onslaught.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out eventually, stroking Damen’s curls away from his forehead, “Damen, I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Damen said, his voice muffled by the fabric of his tunic.

“It was my fault you weren’t with him, when it happened.”

Damen disentangled himself from him, at that, and looked up at him through tears-fringed lashes. “No. Do not blame yourself for this.” He took Laurent’s hand between his own, and tugged him down until they were sitting side by side, their shoulders almost touching, their fingers still laced together. Laurent took Damen’s chin in hand, and gently guided his head against his own shoulder, and Damen buried himself against Laurent’s side, and wept.

Laurent said nothing more, just held him, until he cried himself into exhaustion, and ran out of tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating! I've been very busy with real life stuff, and will be for a while yet, so updates will still be slow, but I promise I'll pick up the pace as soon as I'm less busy, and this story is definitely getting finished. 
> 
> Thank you so much I've you've read this far, and I've you've liked it, please consider leaving a comment!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr!](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com).


	3. Chapter 3

Lykaios smiled sweetly, though her leg throbbed, and her spine ached, and she was cold, in her thin silk shift, with her arms and shoulders bare to the cool breeze. She had been given a stool, at least, mostly so that the perspective buyers wouldn’t notice what was wrong with her leg. 

She had also been given a musical instrument, something they had called a lyre, which she did not know how to play. It was no matter, her handlers had assured her. The lyre had been given to her to explain away the fact that she was seated, while most other slaves remained standing. 

Occasionally, she plucked listlessly at the strings, with a bored, indolent air that, in her home, would have gotten her harshly reprimanded. In this place, one of the handlers simply leaned over her and readjusted her dress so that it looked as though it were about to fall off her shoulders. “Good thinking,” he told her, with an odious little grin. “We’ll never pass you off as palace-trained, but haughtiness has its own appeal.” 

She forced a smile to her lips, her grip on the slender lyre tightening to the point where the wood groaned beneath her fingers, and waited for his attention to be diverted elsewhere.

As soon as he had left her side, she readjusted her dress over her shoulders and resorted to slumping in her little stool in a way that shadowed all of her curves, and staring sullenly through the curtain of her hair at the people strolling by. 

Erasmus, a few paces away from her, was attracting men to his side like honey did flies. No wonder. He was radiant, with golden paint smeared on the angles of his cheekbones, the inner corners of his eyes, his cupid’s bow. His burnished curls had been tousled artfully, so that he gave off the impression that he’d just been tossing his head back and forth in the throes of ecstasy. Someone else, arranged as he had been, might’ve looked cheap, or whorish, but he blushed so readily whenever the littlest bit of attention was directed at him, that he still maintained an air of unsullied innocence. 

While Lykaios, to disguise the unnatural bend of her leg, had been given a gown long enough that it brushed the bones of her ankles, he wore nothing but a collar and a short skirt that only came to the tops of his thighs. It left the welts exposed, as well as the strange crimson jewel that had knocked them both out of the sky - Erasmus first, and then Lykaios with him. The slavers had grinned and tried to pry it free, when they’d caught sight of it, but it had nearly burned their hands off. 

They’d given up on claiming it for herself, after that, and had resorted, instead, to passing it off as a priceless magical artifact, chained to this foreign beauty by a curse, in the hope that the allure of the mystery would drive up the price.

It was scarcely necessary, Lykaios thought cheerlessly, as a blond man pushed her brother’s bottom lip down with his thumb to expose his teeth, as though he were examining a prize horse. Erasmus seemed to be driving up the price all on his own. 

“Sit straighter,” a voice said from her left, and Lykaios turned to look at one of the handlers, a woman with long, blood-red hair held back loosely in a golden clasp. Lykaios wasn’t very good yet at distinguishing the ages of mortals, but she looked young, with a smooth, unlined face and high, round breasts. “We’ll be opening up the auction soon. You’ll be better off being sold quickly.” 

“Why?” Lykaios asked, looking at the assembled crowd, with their carefully styled hair and gold-hemmed clothes, “I have never gotten the impression that the richest men were also the kindest.”

“That boy they brought you in with, he’s your brother, isn’t he?” the handler said mildly, looking at Erasmus with cold, calculating eyes, “He’ll be snatched up quickly. I thought you might want to stay with him, that’s all.” 

It felt as if someone had reached into Lykaios’ chest and squeezed her heart. She let go of the lyre, without conscious thought, and still startled when it fell to the floor with a loud, dissonant clang. She felt her hands curl into fist, her nails digging in the soft skin of her palm, until she felt warm blood well to the surface. 

Somehow, it had not occurred to her that she and Erasmus might be separated.

The handler smiled, not pleasantly, and bent to pick up the lyre with languid, feline grace. “I’ll leave this with you,” she said, pressing it back into Lykaios’ unresisting hands. 

Numbly, she took up the correct position again, reaching with trembling fingers to tilt the neckline of her dress precariously over her shoulders. _Do not cry. Do not cry. Crying will not help you._

She looked at her brother again, as he tilted his head back and smiled at a tall man with a neat, gray-touched beard. The man might be someone important, she thought dimly. He was dressed much more simply than some of the others in the crowd, but there was something, in the sureness with which he held himself, in the respectful distance and simpering nods of the handlers, that spoke of power. 

If she and Erasmus were separated here, she would never find him again.

The man cupped her brother’s cheek, and said something that made Erasmus smile so widely he had to bite his lip against it. 

And then the man turned his head, and looked right at her. He spoke again, and this time, as he was turned towards her, she was able to read his lips. She had centuries of practice with it, after all.

_Her?_

Erasmus nodded. The man regarded her for a long minute longer, and then he turned back to Erasmus. He pressed the backs of his fingers to her brother’s cheek, a lingering, possessive gesture, and signaled with his other hand to one of his attendants, a young girl with straight, black hair and dark, up-tilted eyes. 

She inclined her head, and scurried off to speak with the red-haired handler, and a moment later, Erasmus was being ushered off the dais, and into a waiting carriage, and Lykaios along with him.

There had been no auction; no chance had been given to any of the other buyers to out-bid their new owner. Either he had offered a truly exorbitant price for them both, or he was powerful enough that the simple fact of his patronage would recoup the slavers of any lost profit from the hasty sale of Erasmus. 

As they settled among the plush cushion on the floor of the carriage, waiting for the man who had purchased them to enter the carriage, Erasmus knelt in obeisance, his form as flawless as it had ever been. Lykaios, on instinct, copied him, and had to swallow a scream.

She stayed in position, though the couldn’t quite suppress a twitch, and she felt Erasmus tilting his head to look at her. Subtly, without moving her head, she shifted her gaze, shielded by her lowered lashes, so that she could see him, at the corner of her vision. 

“Are you in pain?” he whispered, in the sweet, song-like language of stars, barely moving his lips. She could’ve wept, just from hearing it. It was the first time they’d spoken, since the slavers had caught them, on the road, fourteen nights before. 

“Don’t worry,” she whispered back, in the same fashion. She might’ve spoken more, demanded to know what he had promised the man, what the man had promised him, but the door of the carriage swung open, and their owner stepped inside. 

She did not look up at him, and kept her gaze fixed on his sandaled feet and strong, muscular calves, as he settled himself and reached out to run his hands in Erasmus’ curls. She forced herself not to look at that, either, not to tense at the way his fingers lingered, proprietary, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her brother’s ear.

And then, impossibly, the man turned to her. “Erasmus told me your leg is injured. There’s no need for you to stay kneeling.”

They had told her, when she was being prepared for the auction, how to address a master or a mistress. “This slave is thankful,” she said, voice clear but soft, and ignored the way the words tasted bitter on her tongue. She, as her brother, as all of her shining, flawless siblings, had stood and knelt and danced and sang in worship and servitude to her mother. A mere mortal did not deserve to share in the same gifts. 

She shifted her position, carefully, until her leg was stretched out in front of her, and the strain had lessened. It was a good position for her to surreptitiously observe her brother and their owner, and she took advantage of it, during the long carriage ride.

They did not speak, but the man used the hand he still kept buried in Erasmus’ hair to guide him, gently, until he rested his head upon his owner’s knee, looking up at him adoringly. Lykaios tensed, fearing that the guiding caress would lead to something further, but the man seemed content to stay in that position, occasionally petting her brother’s hair, or caressing the side of his face. 

She did not like the hungry way he looked at Erasmus, but there was a gentleness in his features that tempered the desire, and she had to admit to herself that they had been lucky in this, that it might’ve been much, much worse.

***

Laurent woke with the sun. It took him a moment to grow aware of his surroundings, luxuriating in the unfamiliar spaciousness and softness of the bed, and in the familiar warmth and weight of Damen’s arms around him.

He slipped out of Damen’s embrace without waking him, shedding his thin bed-shirt as he padded over to the chest of drawers leaned against the bedroom’s far wall. He dressed silently, in clothes that had suited him well when he had been seventeen, and didn’t anymore; the tunic was too tight against his shoulders and chest, and too short in the sleeves, and the hem of the trousers stopped a few inches shy of his ankles. 

The latter, at least, would be easy enough to disguise, once he put his boots on. There was nothing to be done about the tunic, but at least it was clean, something that couldn’t be said about any of his other clothing. Raiding Auguste’s wardrobe wouldn’t have been any use, either. His brother was both shorter and broader than him. 

Laurent crossed over to the bedroom door, where he hesitated, looking back at Damen’s form on the bed, his face smooth and peaceful in his sleep. He’d seen how wounded Damen had been each morning, the previous weeks, when he’d woken to find Laurent gone without a word. 

He went back over to the bed, and leaned over Damen, brushing a soft kiss against his forehead. “Hello,” he whispered, as his lover stirred beneath him. 

“Good morning,” Damen said, voice pleasantly rough. He brought up a hand, still uncoordinated with the remnants of sleep, to stroke along Laurent’s flank. “What is it?”

Laurent hid a smile against his skin, running his fingers through Damen’s curls. “Nothing. I have some business to attend to, I’ll explain later. Go back to sleep.” 

Damen caught his hand, and brought it to his mouth, to press a sloppy kiss to Laurent’s knuckles. “All right,” he mumbled, his half-open eyes sliding shut again. 

Laurent allowed himself another small, delighted smile and lingering look, as he left their bedroom and stepped into the main room. And directly into Auguste’s path, who was coming in from outside, with his hair in disarray, his shirt askew, his feet bare and his boots in his hands. He paused mid-step when he saw Laurent, his face going a deeply unflattering shade of puce. 

“Really?” Laurent asked, unimpressed.

“Before you get mad,” Auguste said, hurriedly, “I’m not doing anything that could result in any royal bastards.” 

“Never mind that,” Laurent replied, waving a hand through the air - though it was something, at least. “But there’s a perfectly ordinary town two days’ ride from here. Is it too much to ask that you contain yourself enough to keep your business at their brothel?”

“ _What?_ ”

“You are willingly giving your seed to a witch,” Laurent said, calmly. “Have you considered how mind-boggling stupid that is?”

“Is it?” There was a wry twist to Auguste’s mouth. “What are your plans with Damen’s seed, then?”

A wave of heat passed over Laurent, followed by a pricking cold fury. _How fucking dare Auguste-_ “Choose your next words very carefully, brother,” he said, in a savage hiss, “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything,” Auguste said, with the slow carefulness that said he was a hair’s breadth away from truly losing his temper, “I simply fail to see the difference between me having sex with a witch and Damen doing the same.”

“Damen’s not doing the same-”

“Are you not a witch, then?”

“Damen is _already_ bound to my will by magic, I hardly need to put him under any more spells.”

“A power you’ve never used,” Auguste snapped back, “And what, are you planning to enslave him with some kind of sex ritual as soon as he’s free?”

“Of course not!”

“Well, then-“

“But just because I wouldn’t-“

“You’re not the only trustworthy person in the coven!” 

“You are being far too loud for this time of the morning,” Damen said, from where he was leaning against the doorway. “Please stop, or take your quarrel outside.” 

“Sorry.” Auguste had the decency to sound sheepish, at least.

“Forgive us. My brother is being unreasonable.” 

“Actually,” Damen sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I think you’re the one being unreasonable.”

Laurent stayed silent, arching an eyebrow. 

“He’s right,” Damen said, pushing himself up and stepping fully into the room. “Potentially having power over someone is not the same as using it. You and I know that better than most. Love is putting a knife in someone’s hand” he added, his tone becoming softer, “and trusting them not to use it to carve our hearts out.” He was only looking at Laurent, by the time he was done speaking, his dark eyes intense.

Auguste, awkwardly, cleared his throat. “Yes. Thank you, Damen. That.” 

Laurent spent a long, silent moment, looking from one of them to the other. “I’ll think further about this,” he conceded. “But if you want me to approve of this relationship, you’ll stop sneaking like a thief in the night, and introduce her.”

“You’ve met her already,” Auguste said, then relented immediately when Lauren opened his mouth. “I’ll have to talk to her, first.”

Laurent sighed, and nodded, and swept out of the room without saying anything more. 

It was very early still. The dirt-packed streets where empty, bathed in the gray light of dawn, and Laurent relished the silence as he crossed the encampment, as well as the coolness of the early morning air, as it stroked over his skin and filled his lungs. 

Keshel, who was often away, did not have a house made of brick and mortar, the way Laurent did; her tent was pitched near the main hall, and it was a large, round structure made of forest green waxed canvas. He went up to it and knocked on the wooden post planted outside the entrance for that specific purpose, as no one in they right mind would walk into a witch’s abode uninvited; not even another witch. 

She pushed the flap open a few moments later, which was a surprise, as she was a notoriously late riser, her wild, brown curls in disarray and a robe clutched around her chest. “Halvik told me to expect you,” she said, smiling, and stood to the side so that he could enter. “Your messenger is through here.”

He took off his boots before he walked in, mindful of the soft carpets spread out underfoot. It looked like Keshel had been up for some time: the furs had been rearranged on her pallet so that it looked in order and there was a lamp burning, filled with plenty of oil. 

Sitting among the disarrayed linens of a smaller pallet, a boy of seventeen or so was eating yoghurt from a glazed bowl. It was a beautiful object, cleverly crafted and a beautiful, deep blue in color. Just like the two empty ones on the table.

Laurent turned back to look at Keshel. She was hovering nervously near the flap, one slender hand still clutching the robe closed around her throat. It was also belted at her waist. _Oh._

“He could’ve told me it was you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have minded so much, had I known.”

She sighed, something in her face softening, and opened her hand. She had what looked like teeth marks on the jut of her collarbones, which told Laurent far more than he ever wished to know about his brother’s sexual proclivities. 

“He’s worried,” she said, “that you will think him ungrateful. I am not a proper choice for a queen.” There was something stilted in the cadence of her speak. As though she was repeating, verbatim, things she’d been told many times over. 

“There are worse choices for a queen than a powerful witch. If she is loyal.”

Keshel smiled. A blade of a smile, cold and sharp. “You keep assuming anyone would crave a throne, little prince.”

“It is a safe assumption to make, I have found.” 

“If you say so,” a pause, “I’ll give you two some privacy,” she added, inclining her head towards the messenger boy. He was, as Halvik had said, very pretty, with tousled brown curls and clear blue eyes. 

“Your brother squeals like a dying pig when he fucks,” the boy said, as soon as they were alone. 

“Somehow, I don’t think they did it with you in the room with them.” Neither Vaskians nor Veretians were particularly shy when it came to sex, but Auguste would probably draw the line at copulating in front of an audience of one, and which was not even involved in the proceedings. 

“They kicked me out of the tent for it,” the boy said sourly. “Not that it mattered. I could hear everything from outside.”

“You listed at the flap, you mean.” 

The boy flushed. “So you’re Laurent, are you? I don’t see what’s so special about you.”

“Who said I was special?” 

“Orlant.” The boy would not quite meet his eyes. “He’s crazy about you. And it’s not even only about wanting to get a leg over you. I could understand _that_.”

The boy was nervous, and he was giving Laurent an excess of information about Orlant, to distract him from what he was not saying. Laurent looked at him more closely. He had fine features, and his skin was clear and rosy, his chin a small, sharp point. 

He found himself wondering. 

“You have me at disadvantage,” he said lightly. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

The boy looked at him for a long moment, his face scrunched up, as though there could be some hidden danger in the simple request for his name.

“It’s Nicaise,” he said eventually. “Orlant was hoping you could offer me protection.”

“And what would you need protecting from?” 

Nicaise swallowed. “The King of Vere has dispatched men to look for the star,” he said, “And Orlant got himself and Jord on one of the teams.”

 _Good man_. “Yes?” 

“He’ll do anything to sabotage the mission. It might get him caught.”

“I still don’t see what that has to do with you,” Laurent said, though he could grasp the shape of it, now.

“It would not go over well for the people closest to him if he is.”

“Such as you?” 

“Such as me.”

Laurent raised his eyebrows, still looking closely at the young messenger. He hoped, for Orlant’s sake, that this was a recent development, and that the boy was older than he looked. “I thought Orlant preferred women.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Indignant, now. Good. That meant he was probably telling the truth.

“What was it like, then?” Laurent asked idly, “Enlighten me.”

“He took care of me. That’s all.” 

“Out of the goodness of his heart?”

Nicaise glared sullenly up at him. “Is that so hard to believe?” 

“With Orlant? No.” He was proud and quick to anger, but he was a good man. “But I suspect there’s more.”

Nicaise shrugged. “I’m small, I can fit in most places. And I’m pretty enough to pass as someone’s pet,” here, his face twisted, like he had tasted something sour, “if I get noticed.”

“So you were a spy.” 

“Yes.”

“Not the most trustworthy of occupations.”

“So what, you’re not letting me stay?” The boy’s face went very red. “I was spying for you, you fucking ungrateful piece of shit. Orlant said you were different from your uncle.”

There it was. “I am,” Laurent said, very coldly. “But it’s not up to me whether you can stay. You’ll need to convince Halvik.”

“Keshel said you were some kind of glorified flower-girl. I think I could handle that, if you took me with you.”

“It’s not as safe a trade as you seem to believe,” Laurent answered, with a touch of amusement, “But that doesn’t matter. I’m going after the star.”

***

Damen stayed silent for a while, after the door had swung shut behind Laurent, and then he turned to Auguste. “You should talk to him again, after you’ve both calmed down,” he said, “he hates it when people he trusts try to deceive him. It makes him feel like a fool. It’s probably most of the reason he was upset.”

“I know,” Auguste admitted, softly, leaning his hip against the table, looking suddenly weary. “It wasn’t my intention. There just wasn’t time for telling him, yesterday. And then I got angry and I-”

“Stopped thinking?” Damen suggested, on a breath of amusement. “You’re much the same in that regard.”

“That we are.” And, after a pause: “He listened to you, though. He never listens to me, when he’s like that.”

“No, I suppose he wouldn’t,” Damen mused, “you’re too easily baited. You can’t allow him to derail the conversation.”

“I know,” Auguste admitted, wryly. “He just makes it so easy to be angry at him.”

Damen found he had nothing to say to that. Instead, he reached out and clasped Auguste’s arm, and they stayed in companionable silence for a while. “This is nice,” he found himself saying. “I always got the impression you didn’t like me much.”

Auguste grinned, a little sheepish. “It was not a completely unfounded impression. I am protective of my brother. Perhaps overly so, at times.”

“He’s the same, with you,” Damen said. “In his own way.” And then, because it needed to be said: “I understand why you might mistrust me, mistrust any man who shows an interest in Laurent, after the way he’s been hurt. But I promise you, I only want his happiness. I would die before I hurt him.”

Auguste had gone very cold and very still, his face expressionless in a way that was reminiscent of Laurent at his most brutal. “ _The way he’s been hurt?_ ” he repeated.

Damen, he suddenly realized, had made a grievous miscalculation. “He has not told you. I thought he shared everything with you.” 

“Told me _what_?” 

“In the past, somebody has”, it felt as though the words were burning their way up Damen’s throat, like bile. “Touched him in ways he did not…” He was strenuously avoiding using the word, as though by not naming the act, he could erase it from Laurent’s history. 

“Enough, I understand,” Auguste said, and gray-faced, crossed the room to sit at the table, sinking his head in his hands. “When? How?” 

_Who?_ he did not ask, but Damen could feel the question hanging in the air, all the same. 

“I don’t know,” Damen admitted, “he has not told me anything. And I did not press him for information. I thought it too painful.”

“But you’re sure of this?”

“Yes,” Damen said. “There have been… instances.” 

“Instances?” 

Times Laurent had shied away from unexpected touches. The way he always insisted they make love with light coming into the room, or else demanded Damen speak to him throughout, as though he needed reminding who he was with. He had refused, initially, to use his mouth on Damen, and even when he’d changed his mind, it had taken him months to allow himself to be touched, during. Damen had stroked his hair, once, after he’d been given permission to touch, while Laurent had his lips around his cock, and Laurent had nearly bitten it off. 

“Yes,” he said, eventually, “I will not tell you the details. Laurent would not want me to. I would never even have brought this up, had I not believed you knew already.”

“Alright,” Auguste said, with great reluctance. “But do you have any suspicions on when?”

“Before we…” it felt wrong to say _made love for the first time_ to Laurent’s brother. “Before we became lovers,” he settled on. “I’m sure of that.” 

“And he was already a powerful witch, at that point. It would’ve been suicide for anyone to even…” Auguste trailed off, growing, if possible, even paler. 

“What is it? Did you think of something?”

“No,” Auguste said, with obvious difficulty. “I think the realization had not fully set in, until now. It’s too awful to contemplate.”

Damen made to cross the room. He thought to lay his hand on Auguste’s arm again, to offer comfort. Auguste held up his hand. “Please, I think I need to be alone right now.”

“Yes, I understand. I need to speak to Nikandros, in any case.” He hesitated, on the doorway. “I will tell Laurent about this.”

“There’s no need,” Auguste said, quietly. “I will not speak to him of it.”

“I will not have secrets between us,” Damen said, perhaps more coldly than what was warranted. “Not anymore.” 

He found Nikandros in the clearing, just inside the palisade, where the Akielons had been allowed to pitch their tents. He had brought two soldiers with him from Ios: Aktis, whom Damen remembered vaguely from past war games, and Pallas, a youth of twenty or so. He was too young to have been a soldier when Damen had last been home, and looked half-delirious with happiness, when Damen introduced himself and shook his hand.

Nikandros had risen when Damen had joined them, but with difficulty, and now he leaned against one of the wooden posts holding up the tent, his face gray under his tan.

“My friend, are you ill?” Damen asked.

“No quite,” he replied, wiping the sweat from his brow, “I broke my oath to you. I had to. Your father would have passed the throne to Kastor directly, and not issued the challenge.”

“Oh,” Damen said, understanding, and walking forward to clasp Nikandros’ forearms. “You should have told me yesterday. I forgive you, of course I do.” 

Nikandros sagged forward for a moment, leaning his weight into Damen’s arms. He straightened almost immediately, his breathing already growing less labored, and color returning to his cheeks. 

“So my father has issued the challenge?” Damen prompted, once the moment had passed. 

“Yes,” Nikandros said, and told him about the star.

“This is unfortunate,” Damen said, when Nikandros was through. “Half the continent will be after that star.”

Nikandros nodded slowly. “I fear so. Will your witch be of any help?”

“He will be of great help,” Damen said. “Although he will need to be convinced not to move against Kastor to weed out the competition. He isn’t very fond of playing fair.” 

“No, I suppose he wouldn’t be,” Nikandors commented, almost to himself. The words did not have the tone of censure he usually adopted when talking about Laurent. “It might be a good idea. I do not think Kastor will be playing fair, either.”

“My brother is an honorable man.”

“One who married your lover as soon as you were conveniently gone? One who made no efforts to find you once you disappeared?”

Damen held up his hand. He would not allow what family he had left to be disparaged in his presence. “Enough, Nikandors.”

Nikandros looked, for a moment, as though he were going to protest, and then he settled. “Even if Kastor is honorable,” he said, “Jokaste isn’t, and she has is ear.” 

This, Damen had to concede, was true.

“They tried to stop us leaving,” Nikandros added, emboldened by Damen’s acquiescence. “A slave had to smuggle us out through the slaves’ baths.”

“A slave?”

“His name is Kallias,” Nikadros said. “One of Kastor’s. “ He seemed to hesitate.

Akielon slaves were trained to be utterly obedient to their masters, to have no will of their own. That one might so boldly go against the wishes of their master was not just unheard of. It was unthinkable. “Do you fear there might have been some deception in his actions?”

Nikandros shook his head. “No. There would have been no advantage to be had, and I think the slave was acting on his own initiative. Kastor does not treat him well.”

Damen did not say anything, but made a gesture to indicate Nikandros should elaborate. 

“He seems to be afraid of his master, and has bruises over his wrists.”

Damen was silent for a long time, trying to parse through his feelings; a mingling of disconcert and rage, a good portion of the latter directed inwards. He had not paid attention to the treatment of his brother’s slaves, when he’d still lived in the palace. “This is troubling to hear,” he said eventually. “A man who mistreats his slaves is not fit to be king.”

“It will be difficult to best him,” Nikandros said grimly, “They have a head start: I had to wait a week here for you, and before that, I had to travel for a week to get here, and in the wrong direction.”

“Then it is best I call for Laurent,” Damen said, with a sigh. “And let us hope he finds a way around this.”

***

They had a feast, that night, ostensibly to invite good fortune upon the travelers, though, Laurent privately believed, it was less about that than it was about taking any opportunity for copious amounts of alcohol and music and dancing.

A bonfire had been built at the center of the camp, the flames half again as tall as a man, dancing and sparking in the cool wind. There was a cooking pit as well, heaped with roasting cuts of fresh meat. Keshel was among those manning it, and she stole a morsel right from the flames and slipped it between her lips, and, bright-eyed, leaned towards Auguste. What she told him was snatched away by the winds and the hum of the crowd, but it made Laurent’s brother throw is head back and laugh.

Halvik was sitting on her raised dais, Nicaise kneeling gracefully at her side, his head tilted up so that he could speak to her, apparently having taken Laurent’s remark that she was the one he needed to convince to heart. There was remarkably little artifice on his pretty face, or, more likely, he’d just figured out she would respond most favorably to openness. 

The Akielons, whom the feast was in honor of, came up to the bonfire a good while later after anyone else, and clustered in a wary knot near the dais, save for their prince, who immediately abandoned his compatriots to join Laurent. 

“I hope you told your men to steer clear of the Hakesh,” Laurent said, when Damen reached him. He had seen some of the younger witches fill up flasks, dark-eyed and giggling. “We need them to make good time riding, tomorrow.”

“Aktis and Pallas have no taste for women, and Nikandros’s too stern to even consider it.” Damen said, laughing. Laurent smiled in turn, and moved closer, just shy of kissing distance, a sly remark of what the two of them might accomplish with a jug of Hakesh already half-formed on his tongue. A hand on his forearm stopped him. “I need to talk to you,” Damen said, too quickly.

“We’ve done nothing but talk,” Laurent pointed out. “All afternoon. What could possibly have happened in the last hour?” They’d stayed sequestered in their house, along with Nikandros, until they’d come up with a plan that had some chance of working, if luck did not piss in their face too much.

“It’s not something I could speak about in front of Nikandros.”

“Alright.” And, when Damen hesitated further: “He’s not here now.”

“But we’re still not alone,” Damen said and, something troubled and uncertain in the lines of his face, offered Laurent his arm. Laurent took it, and found himself being guided deeper in the shadows. 

“I might almost think this an assignation,” he said drily. Like this, it was too dark for him to see Damen’s expression properly, but they were still touching. It was easy to feel how tense he was.

“Before you get angry,” Damen said, “please hear me out.”

“Not the most auspicious of beginnings, Damianos.”

“I meant well.”

There was something cold growing in the pit of Laurent’s stomach. “And a worse continuation.”

“You said you would hear me out.”

“I said no such thing.” 

“I accidentally told your brother what happened to you. I’m sorry. I thought he knew. I never would’ve done it if I thought I was betraying your trust.”

“ _What happened to me_?” Laurent parroted. It felt as if the words were coming from very far away. It couldn’t be. Damen couldn’t possibly mean- He couldn’t possibly know.

“That somebody has- touched you. In ways you did not welcome.”

 _Somebody._ That was vague. That did not imply Damen knew the whole truth. Laurent held onto that like a lifeline. “How do you know that?” he asked, and was surprised at how steady his voice sounded. 

“I figured it out. It took me a while, but eventually it became clear that was the only explanation for how you acted in bed, sometimes.”

Laurent breathed out, harshly, through his nostrils. He felt awfully, intimately known, like a layer of skin had been peeled back to expose all the filth and tar that lurked below it. And he felt marked, too, and tainted, and as if his uncle had reached through the years to sink his greedy fingers into the brightest thing in Laurent’s life. “Do you think of it often?” he found himself asking, his voice suddenly, inexplicably, savage. It was not Damen he was angry at. “Do you think of it, when you have your cock in me? Do you think of it-”

Damen recoiled, and Laurent found a dark, bitter satisfaction twisting deep within himself. _See,_ he thought. _You were right. He will not want you, now, that he sees some of the ugliness in you._

And then Damen’s arms were around him, and there were lips, dry and trembling, being pressed to his brow. “I’m sorry,” Damen whispered, over and over again, a litany of apologies. “I knew talking of it would hurt you, and that’s why I’ve never brought it up, but it was a mistake. I’ve allowed it to fester, like poison in a wound.”

“You have not answered,” Laurent said, but the bitterness was fading, and quickly. 

“No,” Damen said, “No, I don’t think of it. It does not signify.”

Laurent tensed, and Damen must’ve felt it, with how close they were pressed together, for he ran his hand, soothingly, down Laurent’s back. “I did not mean that it does not matter. I want to tear whoever hurt you limb from limb, slowly, over the span of days, until they beg for death. But that you were hurt in the past has no effect on my love for you, or my desire for you.”

“How can it not?”

“How could it?” Damen countered, “It does not change who you are.”

“It has,” he admitted, his voice so small he was not sure, for a moment, whether Damen had heard him at all. “It has changed me.”

“I don’t believe it has,” Damen said, gently. “It may have affected you, but it does not change the core of you. A day will come when you will see that, too.” 

Laurent sighed, and felt something surrender deep within him, unclench and give way. He leaned his head against Damen’s shoulder. “You always make everything sound so simple.”

“That’s because it is simple, my love,” Damen said, and bent his head to press a kiss against Laurent’s nape, warm and comforting.

In the safety of Damen’s arms, he could almost believe it was so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, so sorry for the taking so long to update! Please forgive me, and I promise it won't take a month and a half for the next chapter!
> 
> I've you've read this far, thank you so much, and I've you've liked it, please consider leaving a comment!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr!](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com).


	4. Chapter 4

The man - who, Lykaios learned from the fussy attendants who washed her and her brother and perfumed their hair, was a prince, prince Torveld of Patras - did not bring them to his own home. His own home was days worth of travel away, they were told by the keeper of the slaves, a scrawny, self-important man with thick gray brows. It was in Patras. This, the keeper of the slaves added, with an exasperated air, as though speaking to a child, was Aegina. 

“Of course,” Lykaios demurred. This slave had not been taught geography. This slave came from very far away, and the travels had confused her. 

Once they were clean, she and Erasmus were lead to another room, to the right of the baths; a small space, white-tiled and warm. They were toweled down, and the attendants were mindful of Lykaios’ broken leg, and she was given a stool to sit on. 

She was given a simple, cream-colored tunic, which was belted at the waist, the material slightly rough under her fingers, but pleasant against her skin nonetheless. 

What Erasmus was given had much less fabric, and it shone like liquid gold whenever he moved. 

“It’s Kemptian silk,” said one of the attendants, a young girl with long straight hair and dark eyes. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she added, on a breath, and then she flushed, her gaze skittering to the side. Her hands trembled a little, as she took Erasmus by the elbow, and her grip was so gentle that it looked as though she were terrified he might bruise.

Perhaps she was. Lykaios did not know what the punishment might be, for leaving a mark on something owned by a prince. 

Erasmus was thus guided out of the room, presumably to the bed of prince Torveld of Patras, and Lykaios was given a crutch, and led, laboriously, up a hidden staircase, to a long, narrow room filled with cots. 

It wasn’t much: the ceiling was low, the cots so closely clustered together that there barely was enough space for a person to stand between two of them, and the walls, though clean, were unadorned. But there were windows, at regular interval, wide and unbarred, sunlight shining through, and Lykaios felt her heart be uplifted. Her kind had no need for food and drink; it was light that quenched their thirst, and darkness that sated their hunger, and she’d feared she would be shut away deep in the bowels of the earth, left to become a withered husk of herself.

She was allowed to hobble to a cot directly under one of the windows, and she sank gratefully onto it, basking in the sunlight.

The keeper of the slaves - Augeas - stood over her, and regarded her critically. “His highness, in his kindness, has given order to call for a physician, to attend to your leg.”

“This slave is grateful,” Lykaios said, and was horrified at how easily the words had slid off her tongue. 

The physician came, a man with a round belly and a neat beard. He clucked over the state of her leg, deemed whoever had first splinted it an animal who did not know what he was doing - which was at least partly true. He splinted it again, and prescribed her bed rest, and then he left, and she was alone in the room, unsupervised for the first time since they’d been caught by the slavers.

Not that she could entertain much thought of escaping. She could not go far with her leg, and she would not leave Erasmus, and there were surely guards stationed outside; if they were not guarding the slave-quarters they were at the very least guarding the exits to the house.

Thus went her first few days as a slave of the household of Prince Torveld of Patras: she did not leave her cot, and did not speak to her fellow slaves. If they wondered about this strange addition to their ranks, this maiden who did spent her days in silence, her chin turned to the window, and did not eat and did not drink and did not move and yet did not whither away, they did not talk of it where she could hear them. 

She did not see her brother. 

She told herself that she did not care that she was alone and had made no friends, and yet a hollow feeling carved its way into her breast, as she lay in her bed night after night, and saw her siblings high in the sky.

Her leg healed at such a rate that the physician proclaimed it nothing short of a miracle and gave her leave to exercise, if she so desired, as long as she only took short walks, and only did so in the company of another slave who might offer her help should she need it.

She did not take advantage of this new liberty, and confined herself to her bed still, and still she did not see her brother, until he came to her one night, and offered her his hand, and she was so overwhelmed with joy at the sight of him that she could not bear to do anything but follow him where he lead her.

***

Laurent wasn’t sure what had woken him, at first. Judging from the position on the sliver of moon that was visible from the window, it was the waning hours of the night, not long after the end of the feast. At his side, Damen slept, his muscular arm heavy where it lay across Laurent’s stomach, his chest rising and falling with deep, even breath.

Then he turned his head, and saw the man lingering in the doorway. It was in the darker side of the room, and at first Laurent couldn’t make out his features, just the contours of him and the shine of his blue eyes. And then his sight adjusted to the darkness, and his brother’s face came into focus.

“Auguste,” Laurent said, disoriented. His voice was rough with sleep.

Auguste said nothing, merely inclined his head to the side, and Laurent sighed and disentangled himself from Damen. He followed his brother out into the main room, where the window was bigger, and there was enough moonlight to see by.

“What is it?” Laurent asked, rubbing the sand from his eyes with the knuckles of one hand, while he clutched his sleeping shirt closed around his chest with the other.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Auguste said. There was something uncertain and anguished in his features. “I thought about leaving things well enough alone. I wasn’t sure I could bear it, to hear of it from your lips.”

Laurent was suddenly very cold, and very awake. He let his hand drop from his face, and forced himself to unclench the fingers of the other one from the fabric his shirt, and adjusted his stance, as if bracing himself for a blow.

Auguste’s brows drew together, and he looked down, at the shadowed space between them. “I see now I won’t have to. I’m right, aren’t I? No one would survive an attempted assault on a witch, even one in training.”

“Right about what?” Laurent asked. His voice was brittle. “You’ve not said anything of sense, brother.”

“Please,” Auguste said, gaze still cast downwards. “Please don’t do this.” 

“Do what?” It felt as though there were a great weight pressing down on Laurent’s heart, splintering his ribcage and crushing his lungs. He wasn’t sure what he sounded like any more, and he had not control left over what showed on his face.

“Please,” Auguste choked out again. In the moonlight, the tear-tracks on his cheeks shone like molten silver. “Please, forgive me.”

The words passed through him like a lightning bolt. “Forgive _you_?”

Auguste was talking faster, now, the words blurring into each other, over the half-concealed hitches of breath. “I should have protected you. I should have understood sooner. It shouldn’t have taken _Damen_ to make me see. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know I failed you.”

“You didn’t fail me,” Laurent said, “I went willingly to his bed.” The words burned in his throat like venom. “I was a foolish boy, taken in by baubles and pretty words, and I-”

“Yes,” Auguste said, his voice breaking further, his hand reaching out as if he wanted to grasp Laurent’s, but he pulled back before his fingers could make contact. “Yes. That’s all you where. A boy. Your family should have protected you.” 

“It was my fault,” Laurent said. “I’m just as much to blame as he is. I was in his bed as he plotted to-”

“No,” Auguste said, forcefully. He was no longer weeping, but there was a raw, naked agony on his face, which Laurent had never seen before, not even the night their parents had died, and their world had splintered, and trembled, and finally, fallen apart. “Is that what you’ve been thinking all these years? Is that what _I_ ’ve allowed you to go on thinking?” 

“I-” Laurent had never felt quite like this. He was half-anguished, half-hopeful, a thousand different thoughts pushing into his brain, clamoring to be materialized on his tongue.

“There’s no blame in you,” Auguste went on, unheeding. “In our family, you’re all that’s left without blame.”

“Don’t.” Laurent threw up a trembling hand, as though this was something he could shield himself from. The word hung between them for a long moment, until Laurent took a deep breath, and gathered himself. “If you do not think me guilty me for what I failed to stop,” he said slowly, his voice level again, bound by a razor’s edge of control. “Extend the same courtesy to yourself.”

It looked, for a moment, like Auguste was going to argue, but he didn’t say a thing. He only opened his arms, and Laurent, pathetically grateful, went to him. 

“I feared you might hate me for it.” It was easier to say such things, with his face pressed to his brother’s shoulder. “I feared you might think me tainted, and be disgusted by the very sight of me.” 

A deep tremor wracked Auguste’s body, and his embrace tightened, convulsively, for a moment, before he pushed Laurent back, only far enough that they could look at each other, his hands still warm and comforting on Laurent’s shoulders. “When our mother announced her pregnancy, do you know what my tutor told me, and our grandfather, and all of my friends?”

Laurent shook his head.

“ _Courage, perhaps she’ll miscarry_.”

Laurent winced, despite himself. It had been more or less what he’d been expecting, but that did not make it any easier to hear. 

“Mother would not let me near her without armed guard present, for the duration of the pregnancy.” 

“It would have been foolish of you to attempt on me through her,” Laurent said, “if she’d been killed, father might’ve remarried, and his new wife would’ve been someone younger and more fertile. And newborn children are very fragile, I would have been very to easy to kill in the hours after the birth.” 

“Thank you, I did not mean for us to discuss the finer points of infanticide,” Auguste said, with an edge of exasperation in his voice. There were still tears gathered in his eyes, but he was smiling, a little, almost as though he could not help himself.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Laurent pointed out, mildly. 

“I only meant to say that the entire would was telling me I should hate you, from the very day your existence became a possibility. And yet I could not help loving you.” Auguste stroked Laurent’s hair, gently. “You have done nothing wrong, nothing that could invite my hatred, but even if you had, if I could not hate you then, I certainly could not hate you now. Nor could I think you tainted, or disgusting.”

This made Laurent start to cry again, even though it really shouldn’t have, and he folded against Auguste’s shoulder, weak and trembling with relief. Auguste did not seem to mind, however, and just held him through his sobs, stroking his back. 

Eventually, once Laurent had regained control of himself, he pulled back, and ignoring the mess of tears and snot that doubtlessly was on his face, said, with something that aimed at his usual acerbic tone and missed my a mile: “So what you’re saying is that I conned you into caring for me, and now it’s too late for you to stop.”

Auguste laughed, far more loudly than what the weak attempt at humor warranted, at reached over to ruffle Laurent’s hair. He opened his mouth, probably to offer some retort, but his gaze fell over Laurent’s shoulder, to the shadowed doorway to his room. Laurent turned, and peered into the darkness, but no one was there. Damen had not woken.

“You should tell him,” Auguste said softly. 

“No. It doesn’t matter.” 

“If it didn’t, you would tell him. He would not turn you away.”

“You can’t know that,” Laurent said, and hated how feeble his voice sounded. How afraid. 

“I can,” Auguste replied. “He loves you as much as I do, even if it is a different kind of love. And even if he didn’t, he’s a good man. And he’s divined half the truth, already, and that has not altered his regard for you.”

“He’s divined the half that is easier to stomach,” Laurent said, roughly.

Auguste drew himself up, as though preparing himself for another argument, but then his shoulders slumped. “All right,” he said, quietly. “It is not my place to dictate how you should live your life. But promise me you’ll at least consider it.”

***

The water was milky white, in the slaves’ baths, opaque, and warm, wafting perfumed vapors. It made the air heavy, and hot, and languorous. It was pleasant, to sit there, enveloped by the steam, allowing his mind to grow sluggish, letting his limbs be slowly coaxed into a state of abandoned relaxation. The room was silent, and outside, the halls were silent, too, and the corridors and the courtyards and the gardens; all was silent and still and glinting in the moonlight, and the silence and the stillness and the glimmer all served to cloak this moment in a fragile sort of magic.

It was the hours at the heart of the night, and the whole of the keep slept, save for the two stars who would never know slumber.

Earlier that evening, his heart hammering in his throat, Erasmus had slipped from his master’s bed, and Torveld, sated and tired, had not stirred. There had been guards, posted outside the room, but they’d not stopped him, nor had he been stopped when he’d entered the slave quarters, and roused his sister. 

Lykaios sat beside him, her legs, too, dangling in the water, a golden comb in her slender hand. Slowly, methodically, she was working the tangles from Erasmus’ hair. He felt her pause, and then a touch was brushed on a tender spot on his neck. He felt himself redden.

“Does he treat you kindly?” she asked, her voice quiet. He couldn’t parse the emotions in her tone. 

He thought of Torveld’s low rumble of a voice, of his big, calloused hands. He thought of the gentleness of his touch, of the scrape of his beard against the softness of Erasmus’s neck. He thought of the hot rush of his breath. “Oh, sister,” he said, “there are no words for it.” 

He felt the tension mounting in her, the movement of her hand growing stiff and graceless, the teeth of the comb raking across his scalp, until she breathed out once, deeply, and made herself soft again. “Are you in love?”

And when Erasmus, incapable of deception as he was, was helpless to do anything but grow redder and look away, she spat out: “Brother, really? You’ve known him a week.”

“A week is enough.” 

She scoffed. “And even if it was? He’s a base, decaying thing, ticking closer to death with every turn our mother makes around the earth.”

“Stop.”

“He’s unworthy of you, and of your servitude.” 

“Enough!” His voice echoed off the white-tiled walls, startlingly loud. “You speak of things you don’t understand.” His jaw was trembling, and his eyes burned with unshed tears, but he bore her gaze, and she was the one to look away first.

“I could never bear to have one of them touch me, with their dying hands,” she said, sullenly. “I suppose it is fortunate that you are different. It is not as though he would have given you a choice, had you been unwilling.”

“He would have. He did. He said he’d wait for me as long as I needed.”

“That does not mean forever,” she said, something sweet and sorrowful in her voice. He hands gentled, in his hair, and she touched him with true affection, for the first time that night, as she had when the world had been new, and they young stars in their mother’s halls. “It never does, with his kind. They cannot grasp the concept of it.”

“He would have waited forever,” Erasmus insisted, and swallowed the curl of uncertainty. “And in any case, it does not matter. I did not want him to wait. And he’s been kind to us. He found a physician for your leg. I don’t understand why you’re so determined to hate him.”

She was silent for a long time, smoothing out his hair. “I just want to go home,” she whispered. Her voice was very small.

“I know,” Erasmus said, just as quietly. “But we cannot. Stars fall. They don’t go back up.”

She sighed, slow and sorrowful, and he for a moment, he thought she might weep. But she pushed herself together, and steadied her trembling fingers. “Why did you ask me to come here tonight? Why are you not with your mortal?”

“I needed to speak to you,” he said, slowly. “He knows what we are.”

“No.” And then, all in a rush: “Have you told him? Erasmus, how could you?”

“No! He’s figured it out for himself.” Unable to keep the pride from his voice. “He’s very clever.” He’d cupped Erasmus’ face in his strong, calloused palms, and smiled at him, not trace of mockery in it, only warmth, and said, _How could I not have known? You shine with a light all your own, my darling._ He still felt faint and trembling with happiness at the memory.

Lykaios ignored this last statement. “What does he plan to do about it?”

“Nothing. He’s offered his protection,” and when Lykaios still seemed unconvinced, he added: “He’s a prince. His protection must be worth something.”

“It may be worth a great deal,” Lykaios admitted, reluctantly, “Not even a witch will easily stand against an army, and win.” She breathed in, deeply. “Is this all?”

“No,” Erasmus said, and traced the chain wrapped around his thigh, a nervous gesture. “He knows about this, too.”

“How much?”

“Everything.” He and Lykaios had not spoken of it, of the gem imbued with magic that had knocked them out of the sky. She knew as well as he what it was: an obligation. And those bound their kind as no man-crafted chain could. No cuffs nor collars nor loves would ever stand between Erasmus and the duty of seeing this through. “I have to give it to the right person,” he revealed. “They will need to ask me for it, and I will give it, and I will be free of it.”

“All right,” Lykaios said. She was looking at his face intently.

“Prince Torveld knows who the right person is. Someone called Prince Kastor, of Akielos. Prince Torveld will write to him, in the morning, so that he’ll come to collect the stone.”

Lykaios sighed, scowling. She was hesitating, it was plain to see, her fingers twisting around the golden comb. 

“What is it, sister? I thought you’d be pleased. This is good news.” 

“I understand your eagerness to be rid of the stone, but,” she paused, a far-off look in her eyes that meant she was trying to think, “if all that was needed was for this Kastor to collect it, why would anyone have thrown it to the stars at all? Couldn’t they simply have had it delivered? Or given it to him directly?”

It was a good point. “I don’t know,” Erasmus admitted. “I didn’t think to ask.” It had seemed like such a wonderfully neat solution, when his master had proposed it, and he’d accepted it eagerly, so eagerly that he’d scarcely given it a moment’s thought. 

His dejection must’ve shown on his face; Lykaios laid her hand on his arm, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Perhaps there is some other explanation,” she said encouragingly. “And even then, it might do no harm to let Prince Kastor come and ask you for the gem. If he is not the right person, you will not be able to give it to him, and he will not be able to take it from you by force.”

***

When Damen woke, it was to a rush of cold air as Laurent slipped back under the covers. “Is everything all right?” he mumbled, opening his eyes just enough for a shaft of sunlight to stab into them. Hastily, he shut them again.

A dry, warm press of lips to his cheekbone, there and gone. “Yes,” Laurent said, with a breath of amusement. “I brought you breakfast. But you’ll actually need to wake up if you want to eat it.”

“Waking up is overrated,” Damen grumbled, just to hear Laurent laugh. He propped himself up against the headboard, opening his eyes more slowly, this time, and accepted a bowl full of toasted grain mixed with honey. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Laurent said, and curled up against Damen’s shoulder, his own breakfast balanced in the palm of his hand. “We’ll need to go, soon,” he added, quietly, as though he was speaking more to himself than to Damen.

Damen craned his neck, judging the position of the sun outside their window. It was earlier than what he’d believed at first, the sky still tinged eggshell-blue in the pre-dawn light. “Not for a while yet,” he said, and brought his arm around Laurent’s waist, hand dropping so that he could gently run his thumb over his hipbone. “Once more for the road?” he offered, quirking an eyebrow.

Laurent turned to face him, and, gently, brought up his fingers to the corner of Damen’s mouth, his eyes lit by some strange, unnamable emotion. Damen grinned, and bent his head, expecting to be kissed. “Will you just- hold me?” Laurent asked, instead, and smiled, just a fraction, a flighty and trembling thing.

“All right,” Damen said, and brushed a lock of golden hair from Laurent’s face; slowly, tenderly, he took Laurent in his arms. He had half-forgotten about the bowls they still held, and they knocked together, clanging. Laurent laughed, a short, bright sound, and reached over to place their breakfast on the nightstand. It had the pleasant effect of bringing him half on top of Damen, and the less pleasant effect of making the sharp point of his chin dig into the meat of Damen’s shoulder. 

He cupped the back of Laurent’s head in his palm, and stroked the soft hair there, once, and then turned him so that they were both more comfortable, Laurent tucked up against him, his breath soft and warm in Damen’s ear. They stayed that way a long time. Laurent was tense, held coiled with a nervy sort of energy, but slowly, fraction by fraction, he relaxed into Damen’s embrace, until an half-suppressed shudder passed through him, and he raised his head. “We will win,” he said, and he sounded utterly sure of himself. “We will beat your brother to the mark, and you will get your throne, and then we will turn to Auguste’s.”

“Yes,” Damen said, his hand at the back of Laurent’s neck, his lips buried in soft, golden curls. “We will.”

Their goodbyes were a quiet affair. Besides the five of them, it was only Auguste and Keshel at the gates, the rest of the coven still laid down by the previous night’s excesses. Auguste hugged his brother tightly to his chest, valiantly doing his best to rest his chin on top of Laurent’s head, as though Laurent were still a small child. 

A difficult feat, as Laurent surpassed him in height by a good few inches. 

Unsure what else there was to do, Damen went to talk to Keshel. She was Auguste’s mystery lover, or so Laurent had said, and, in any case, he was the only one there, besides Laurent, who knew her more than in passing.

She smiled at him when he approached her. “Make sure he treats my horse right,” she said, and nodded with her chin towards Laurent.

“You know he will,” Damen replied. They would not be taking the wagon, and she’d been ‘persuaded’ by Laurent - which meant gently coerced - to let him take her horse for the travel. Damen would be riding the mare who usually pulled their wagon. She was a calm, strong animal, though of far inferior stock to Keshel’s steed. 

“I do,” she admitted, with a rueful sigh. “Otherwise, I never would’ve let him get away with taking her, no matter how many sly hints about getting into the family’s good graces he dropped.” 

“I’m sorry. He’s bad at asking,” Damen said. 

She snorted. “That’s one way of putting it,” and, then, with a sort of fond, amused exasperation: “You know, the only people I’ve ever seen him ask things of are you and Auguste.”

“Halvik,” Damen offered.

Keshel shook her head, slowly. “No. Not even her. It’s always been very politely phrased demands. Offers of exchanges.”

“Not even when he first came here?” Damen asked, suddenly curious. Laurent had told him about his arrival at the coven, but very shortly, and Damen had not pressed him for further details. It had not seemed important, at the time. 

Keshel seemed to consider this, her gaze turning distant. “No,” she said, at length. “He was terribly self-assured, even at thirteen.” 

A few paces away, Laurent was disentangling himself from his brother, reluctantly. Auguste was speaking quickly, still holding on to Laurent’s hands. Likely making a thousand recommendations that would go ignored. 

“We’d better go,” Damen said, and started to move away, but Keshel put a cool hand on his wrist. 

“A star’s heart is a difficult thing to resist, for a witch,” she said. There was something bright and turned inward, in her gaze. Her eyes were wide and gleaming, like pools of molten silver. 

Because of the easy, physical way in which she carried herself, it was easy to forget she was a witch, just as Laurent was, until moments like these came, sudden as a summer storm. “Even now, miles and miles away, it calls to me. It will get worse, the closer he gets. He will need your strength.” 

“He will have it,” Damen promised, steadily, and then Keshel was pulling away from him, and they were getting on their horses, and they were off.

***

“The mistress is looking for you.”

Kallias sighed, pushing himself off of the sun-warmed wall, and looked at the girl in front of him. She was young - thirteen or fourteen - with thick-lashed brown eyes and dark hair that she kept braided behind her head. She was a servant, not a slave; this household was not grand enough to keep slaves. 

The mansion they were staying in was a few days’ travel from the border with Patras, a squat structure made of red-brown bricks, with an attached orchard, more in the southern Patran style than in the Akielon one; this close to where the two countries met, peoples and architectures intermingled. 

They had reached the house the evening before, and unexpectedly, lingered throughout the day. Kastor had been in a boisterous mood, bidding that Kallias call him _exalted_ , and, after demanding his services early in the morning, living him free to spend his day outside, enjoying the sunshine and the company of the household’s servants. 

He had been taking ample advantage of the former, but the servants had made themselves scarce, in his presence, until that moment, and, even when she was carrying out orders, there was a nervous light in the girl’s brown eyes, and there was uncertainty in the way she held herself. He could understand why: she outranked him, by virtue of being free, and he outranked her, by virtue of serving a much nobler master. 

“Where is she?” he asked, meaning Jokaste. 

“In her chambers,” the girl said, “I can show you there.” 

“That’s not necessary,” he replied. “I know where they are.”

This was not a grand enough place that it had room for visiting royalty, so Kastor had simply been put in the best rooms they had, the master of the house’s own suite. Under the circumstances, it might have been expected that his wife would share them with him, but Jokaste had insisted on having a bed of her own, for reasons unknown, and thus had been placed in the best of the guests’ rooms, almost on the opposite side of the house from her husband.

Kallias had been ordered to bring her packs to her rooms, the night before, and he retraced the steps easily. He found her not, as he had half-expected, in the solar, but in her own bedroom. It was a sun-drenched room with white stuccoed walls, spacious but sparsely furnished. It contained no other furniture but her bed, a tall chest and an iron-wrought vanity table, at which she sat. 

She held a silver brush in her slender hand, and she was patiently working it through her straight, golden hair, one lock at a time. It was not a task at which he had expected to ever see a mistress, especially not a mistress such as Jokaste, who wore her pride like a cloak. 

“Lady,” he said, keeping his head bowed. “This slave is honored by your summons.”

She turned her head to look at him, her slender hand stilling in its movements. Wordlessly, she held the brush out to him, and he, just as quietly, accepted it from her and took up her task.

“Kastor tells me you come from beyond the wall,” she said, airily, after he had let himself grow accustomed to the monotonicity of the task. 

He did not startle, but it was only because he was very well-trained. “Yes, lady.”

“What is it like?”

He was silent for a while, thinking. It had been a long time since he’d thought of those lands, and longer still since he’d last seen them. He had been seven when he’d been taken to Faerie, bartered and paid for at the Great Market, and he could no longer quite recall the face of the woman who had birthed him into the world. “Not so very different from here, lady,” he answered eventually, “Only, there is no such thing as magic, there.”

She laughed, lightly, a gentle, silvery thrill of a sound. “Very different, then.” And then, sly: “I hear thrones are tame things, in those lands, without a will of their own, to be passed on from father to son without any trials at all.”

“You hear correctly, lady,” he said. He was unsure where this conversation was leading, and suddenly dreading it. Jokaste was holding herself with the poised, amused grace of a cat toying with a mouse. 

“But surely there is strife sometimes?” she asked, still with that studiously casual air. “Sometimes, a prince not destined for the throne might seek to claim it, even so.”

“I was very young when I was taken, lady,” he said, barely registering his slip, “too young to know much of politics, or worry about them.”

She hummed, and then, abruptly, she moved away from him, and stood to face him. “And now?” she prompted.

“This slave is unworthy of concerning himself with such things,” he said, promptly. “This slave seeks only to serve his master to the best of his capacity.”

“That’s interesting,” she commented. “See, I know that you’re the one who let Nikandros out of the royal palace. That seems like a deeply political gesture to me.”

It was as though there were a block of ice forming at the core of him, heavy and cold, with frost-bitten tendrils that spread through his limbs. For a moment, he stood frozen. And then he called upon his training, and breathed through the fear, and did not let it show. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You have not gone to your husband with this,” he said, going back to his task. He hair was smooth and soft, now, and gleaming like a skein of silk. “So you must want something from me, in exchange from your silence. It must be something dark indeed, if a mistress must resort to threatening a slave to obtain it.”

Her hand darted back, gripping his wrist. Still holding on to him, she twisted around in her chair, so that he found himself, startled, looking at her face. Her eyes were steady, and a deep, even blue. He had never seen their color before. A slave was not meant to. 

“You are very arrogant,” she said, “a bad trait in a slave. But there is some cleverness in you.” The side of her mouth lifted. “A shame you’re so pretty. You might’ve done better for yourself than being my husband’s fuck-toy, had you been plain.” 

He could do nothing but gape at her, and, with a sigh, she released his wrist. She took something from the vanity table, an oblong object wrapped in green felt. She balanced it in the palm of her hand, held aloft between them, and unraveled the cloth with quick, graceful gestures. “Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a candle, lady.” It was pleasantly shaped, and the wax was of good quality, and gleaming, its color a dark blue, dotted with silver pinpricks like stars in a night sky. 

“Perhaps I was wrong,” she said, “perhaps you’re not clever, after all.”

And, when still he did not understand, she said, with an edge of exasperation in her voice, the first hint of real emotion she’d displayed: “ _Can you get there by candlelight?_ ”

_Oh._ “A Babylon candle.”

“Good. Do you know how to use one?”

He shook his head.

“It’s not difficult,” she said, lounging backwards into her seat. Twisted around as she was, she could not lean upon the back of the chair, so she rested against the edge of the vanity instead, one hand resting on her abdomen. She still held the candle loosely gripped in the other hand. “You just light it, and you walk, into whichever direction you wish.”

“All right,” he said, slowly, still grasping at the edges of her meaning. He felt like a man who has been too long in the darkness, and is finally seeing the sun; that candle was freedom, in the dance of a flame. “What am I meant to do with it?”

“Use it, of course,” she said. “We have received a missive from Torveld of Patras. He has the star, and the Power, and he wishes to give it to Kastor.”

She paused, for a long moment, as though gathering her thoughts. Her hand was still on her stomach, loosely cupping. It was a gesture Kallias had seen before, he realized, in young women swelling with child. 

“I will not go with my husband to meet with Prince Torveld,” she went on. “I am ill. But he will take you. And, before he can claim the Power for his own, I want you to take the star, and the jewel it carries, and go far, far away from here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much I've you've read this far, and I've you've liked it, please consider leaving a comment!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr!](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com).


	5. Chapter 5

The town of Nesson-Eloy had cropped up hungrily as the empires of old had splintered, old borders fading and new lines being drawn, between Akielos and Patras and Vere and Vask. 

It did not pulse with the deep, building energy of the earth, did not bear the brunt of having millennia of sorcerers and witches and monsters and cursed maidens treading its soil, trailing bits and pieces of their magic in their way, like so much dust and debris. Not in the way the clearing at Wall did, where the oldest of the Markets rose every ninth year, for one brief, shining day, before it fell with the night. 

Nesson was an in-between place, caught at the border of Vere and Vask, a place for passing though, and though its narrow cobbled roads and far-flung archways collected no magic, they thrummed with a manic sort of wonder. 

Laurent enjoyed walking through them.

He enjoyed the hum of life that always came from the city, day and night, and enjoyed the way the buildings were a seamless blend of Veretian and Vaskian architecture, the way this place allowed the two halves his life had so rigidly been divided into, the Prince and the Witch, the man he was and the child he had been, to intermingle, just for a moment. 

A pity the company he was keeping was not as enjoyable. 

“I am starting to think that you do not like me very much,” he said, at length, to break the silence.

“Really?” Nikandros replied, dry. “Wherever did you get _that_ impression?”

“It’s less thinking and more knowing,” Laurent continued, airily, “But it did not seem polite to say so.”

“I do not think you have ever let that stop you, before.”

“How much you presume to know of me,” Laurent said, pausing at a crossroads to give his companion the chance to catch up to him. “And yet we’ve spent so little time together.”

Nikandros only scoffed, and said nothing more, as they crossed the bustle of the central square, and entered in the wide, sun-drenched boulevards of the richer parts of town, until they reached their destination; a quaint, tucked-away inn in one of the better streets of the town, its white walls covered in climbing vines, heavy with fragrant flowers. 

“After you,” Laurent offered, gesturing to the green-painted door. Nikandros, amusingly, hesitated, as though he believed there was some danger in turning his back on Laurent, here, in the middle of the day, half a step from an inn. 

Then he seemed to collect himself, and stepped inside, going as far as to linger in the entrance to hold the door open for Laurent. “Careful,” he said, awkwardly, “there’s a step.” 

Laurent had been there before, but it would have been in bad form to point that out. And he did want Nikandros to like him. “Thank you,” he said instead, and smiled sincerely at the Kyros as he entered the cool shadows of the inn. 

They were inside a small room, illuminated only by the few shafts of sunlight that passed through the small window high up against the ceiling. The room served as a sort of entrance hall for the inn, separated from the bustle of the dining room proper, only big enough to hold a few people and the thick mahogany table that rested across from the door.

The inn-keeper was behind the table, short enough, Laurent knew, to need to stand on a stool to reach the surface, stooped and wrinkled, her blue skin faded and sagging in places. Laurent wasn’t sure exactly _what_ she was, or how many years she’d lived, and he’d always thought it best not to ask. All he really knew was that she’d been manning the inn for as long as Laurent could remember, and had always been this decrepit. 

“Good afternoon, Lutine,” he said, sketching a bow. 

She raised her bloodshot, rheumy eyes to meet his, and smiled. Her smile was as lovely as it was terrible, her teeth white and straight and gleaming, and sharp as knives. “Laurent,” she greeted, and her voice was the sweet lilt of a maiden’s song. “I was starting to think you would not come, this year.”

Laurent smiled. “So was I, actually.” He stepped towards the desk. “I’m looking for Charls.” This was their third stop, working their way south to catch up to him. “Is he here?”

“Not right now,” Lutine said. “But he has taken lodgings upstairs. You may go wait for him in the dining room.” 

The dining room was circular, low-ceilinged and stuffy, overly warm with the fire crackling in the hearth and the people closely crammed together, even in the middle of the afternoon. Laurent dragged Nikandros to a table against the wall, in good view of the door but still far enough away from the fire that the heat was not too uncomfortable.

He quickly flagged down the potboy, ordering cuts of cold meat for both of them, wine and a carafe of water. 

“I’m not hungry,” Nikandros complained as soon as the boy was gone.

“Too bad,” Laurent replied. “You wouldn’t want to offend our hostess, would you?”

Nikandros opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it, and settled in his seat with his arms crossed, glaring at Laurent in sullen silence. 

Laurent allowed it until their food arrived, and then he set a weak magical barrier around them, so that anyone attempting to listen in would find his attention gently, yet firmly, nudged into another direction. “So,” he prompted, leaning his chin on his hand and plucking a piece of ham from the platter, “not liking me very much. Why, when you have spent, all told, very little time in my presence? 

Nikandros glowered at Laurent, which seemed to be one of his favorite expressions. “I have the measure of you clearly,” he said, “I know your ilk.”

“My ilk?” Laurent asked, feigning surprise, his eyebrows drawn up. 

Nikandros only scoffed.

Laurent gave him a few moments to see if he’d speak, then he said, his voice more measured, “So you look at me, and see another cold, cunning beauty he has loved.”

“He has spoken to you of Jokaste.” 

“He has spoken to me of many things.” And, before Nikandros could respond, Laurent added, “I do not begrudge you your diffidence. We both know he trusts in absolutes. But I do hope you’ll come to see that his trust in me is not misplaced.” 

Nikandros was silent for some time. “It is a little difficult to believe that,” he said eventually, and it took Laurent a moment to understand what he was referring to.

“Why would it be difficult?” Laurent asked, keeping his tone light and even, as though they were discussing the taste of the food, or the quality of the drink. 

“You’ve bound him to your magic, and made him your slave,” Nikandros pointed out, sharply. “And now you would convince me of your virtue.”

“Is he?” Laurent asked. “My slave?” 

That gave Nikandros pause. “I suppose he is not,” he conceded. “But you still do not have an explanation for the bond.”

“I do, actually,” Laurent replied, straightening his back and taking care to look Nikandros straight in the eyes. This was no longer a conversation for affected languor. “I just don’t think you’ll believe me.”

“Try me.”

“I did it to save his life. Someone else had already started to set the bond, and botched it, and left it unfinished. When I found him, it was killing him, so I finished the spell and bound him to me instead. And I’ve not used the powers over him the bond awarded me. Not even once.”

This last was not, strictly speaking, true. It had been years, and thinking of it felt like trying to remember the details of a fever dream, simply because it was difficult to imagine a time when he and Damen had not been to each other as they were now. When Damen had first woken in his and Auguste’s house, confused and in pain, his instinctive reaction had been violence, worsened when Auguste had tried to hold him down. It had taken Laurent, sixteen years old and frightened and new to his magic, long enough to think to use his powers that Damen shattered Auguste’s wrist. 

After that, it had been as though a dam had broken, and the compulsion trickled through the bond into Laurent’s words with no conscious effort on his part, turning simple sentences into orders. It had been the work of weeks to learn how to master it, how to keep the magic tightly coiled under his skin.

It had been longer still until he’d trusted Damen enough that he’d removed the compulsion that he not attack them, or anyone else in the village, and even then, it had taken Auguste intercession to convince Laurent that it wasn’t right to use the bond even in that small way.

“You’re right,” Nikandros said, “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, it is the truth. I cannot give you another one.”

“I’ve asked Damen about the circumstances of how he came into the bond, and he remembers nothing,” Nikandros said. The unspoken was obvious: _how convenient for you_. 

“Pity,” Laurent replied, “if he did, he could tell you this himself, and maybe then you might focus on our cause rather than worrying about all the ways I could betray you.”

“I am more than capable of focusing on two things at once.”

Laurent did not roll his eyes, but that was only because such a childish action was beneath him, a and he would not give Nikandros the satisfaction of his exasperation. “Fine,” he said. “Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that I’m lying. What would I stand to gain from this?” 

“Damen wants to make you his consort,” Nikandros pointed out, “I’d say you’ve had much to gain from this situation.” 

Of course Damen was already announcing their engagement to all those who stayed still long enough to listen, Laurent thought, uncharitably. Although, to be fair, the part of his mind that sounded suspiciously like his brother supplied, _he_ had told Auguste immediately, and Nikandros was Damen’s oldest and closest friend. “Quite aside from the fact that I did not _know_ the man I’d rescued was a prince of Akeilos until weeks after the fact-”

“You might be lying about that, also.”

“Quite aside from _that_ ,” Laurent repeated, his voice not louder, but certainly more forceful, “what exactly was my brilliant plan supposed to be? Kidnap Damianos of Akeilos and bind him into slavery. Tell him he’s enslaved to my will, and proceed to never exploit my powers over him. Trick him into falling in love with me, so that he’ll marry me of his own free will. Is that about it?” 

“Is that so far-fetched?” Nikandros asked, although he sounded doubtful.

“ _Yes_. First of all, this is a plan that might go awry at any given step, and it would require a ridiculous number of coincidences to go exactly the way I expected them to, including banking on the fact that Damen would be kind-hearted enough not to exploit the obvious way out of the bond comprised of my death. Second of all, why would I do that when I could use my control over Damen to force him to marry me and not reveal the truth of his enslavement to anyone?”

“Your death would free Damen?” 

Laurent shrugged. “Why else did you think Damen bade you promise never to reveal the truth of what happened to him, when you found us? He knew it would not take Theomedes’ scholars long to devise that handy little loophole. He knew it would be signing my death sentence.”

As Laurent spoke, Nikandros’ hand had crept to the short sword that hung at his belt.

“Going to gut me in a public house like a common criminal, Kyros?” Laurent asked, quietly, offering a wry smile.

Nikandros snatched his hand away. “No,” he said, and then, ruefully: “Damen would be upset.”

“Was that a _jest_?” Laurent asked, half-incredulous, laughter lacing his voice. “I feel I should treasure this moment. It’ll be at least a decade before you make another one.”

“Undoubtedly,” Nikandros said, “As I am already regretting this one.”

***

The man they had been looking for - Charls - arrived after he and Laurent had been waiting in the dining room for close to two hours, during which Nikandros had forced himself to eat some of the cold meats - which were surpassingly good - to temper all the mouth-rasping wine he’d been drinking. He’d needed the latter to endure Laurent’s company.

The witch had not actually _done_ anything in the hours they’d spent together, and had not even attempted to draw Nikandros into further conversations after their talk about the origin of the spell that bound Damen. And yet his very presence chafed at Nikandros, like an ill-fitting cloak. 

It did not help that now he knew such an easy solution to the problem posed by the bond. Laurent’s neck, above the collar of his jacket, was white and fragile, and if Nikandros focused on it long enough, he fancied he could see the flutter of his pulse, and he couldn’t help thinking how easy it would be, to creep over to his and Damen’s shared tent in the night, and slit that pale throat open. 

He wouldn’t do it. Both because Laurent was a witch, and killing him would not be simple at all, no matter how soft and breakable he looked, and because there was a chance, no matter how slim, that he was telling the truth, and Damen would never forgive him if that was the case.

Charls, when he arrived, was a man of middling height and indecipherable age, with the kind of bland, agreeable face that one would forget immediately after losing sight of it. He brightened considerably with he spotted them, and came over to clasp Laurent on the shoulder. “I was expecting to see you further south!”

Laurent smiled back at him warmly. He looked genuinely pleased to see the man, which in turn made him appear like an affable youth rather than like a reptile. “I am not going to do the usual route, this year,” he said. “Unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped.”

Charls nodded sympathetically. 

“I was hoping you might be willing to trade with me,” Laurent went on, “You might have something that I need.”

“I’m sure I can help you,” Charls said, his eyes gleaming shrewdly, “for one or two of those glass flowers of yours.” 

“What I require are two yards of gossamer silk from Argatnél,” Laurent said. 

The pleased light left Charls’ eyes. “Those are dangerous things to get mixed up in.”

“Nevertheless, I require it.” 

Charls was silent for some time, considering the situation. “I have some,” he said eventually, haltingly, “it’s best if you follow me.” 

Nikandros didn’t see what it was about a piece of fabric that could possibly elicit such wariness, but he didn’t comment, just fell into step behind them. Perhaps, he reflected cheerlessly, looking at Charls’ mustard-colored jacked, the silk just had a pattern that was particularly offensive to the eye, and caused blindness in all those that beheld it. 

“And how is Lamen?” Charls asked, a touch awkwardly, as they followed him up the stairs to what was apparently his rooms. Nikandros may not have had much experience dealing with merchants directly rather than through a servant or a steward, but he was fairly certain it was not standard procedure for them to keep their wares inside their bedchambers.

“Lamen?” he whispered to Laurent, grabbing him by the arm to stall him a moment and get him aside. 

Laurent blithely ignored him, and, once he’d freed himself from Nikandro’s grip, continued up the stairs with something of a spring in his step. “He had a familial emergency,” he said. “He sent Argos here as a replacement,” he added, gesturing to Nikandros. “Though, as you can see, they are not made of the same stock.”

Nikandros glowered, Charls smiled beatifically, and Laurent switched to chatting lightly of the state of the roads, and the new fashions in Arles. Charls leaned in conspiratorially and regaled Laurent with courtly gossip: who had been present at the palace, who had not been, who had had a new pet.

This was a more welcome discussion topic than the previous one, as it merely bored Nikandros nearly to tears instead of infuriating him. Still, he was extremely glad when they reached the landing to Charls’ rooms, which, Nikandros realized as they stepped inside, had to be the best in the establishment: sunny and wide, with a sturdy oak bed and a view of the mountains.

There was a wooden chest in the corner next to the bed, tall enough to reach Nikandros’ knee, all of it polished and warm and gleaming, save for the three thick iron locks holding it closed. Charls went over to it, knelt and opened the locks one by one, with keys he took from a chain around his neck.

Each lock made a loud sound as it was released, like the beat of a drum. 

Once he got the lid open, Charls kept his body between them and the chest, blocking its contents from sight, and he rifled through it, until he turned towards them with a bundle of pale gray fabric in his hands, as impalpable as morning mist.

He held the fabric with one hand, while with the other he reached behind himself and slammed the lid of the chest shut, still not letting them get even a glimpse at what was inside. He came over to them, and Laurent reached out his hand and ran his fingers over the gossamer silk, a complicated expression on his face. 

Then he turned to the only flat surface in the room - the bed - and set on it the satchel he had brought with him, spilling out of it onto the bedding an assortment of glass flowers, some in jewel tones, some in pales pinks and blues and yellows, some the purest white. Roses and daffodils and lilies and snowdrops, all cleverly shaped out of glass. Nikandros peered at them carefully, but he could not discern whether they had been blown or smithed or carved.

Charls came over to the bed also, and stood looking at the flowers for a long time, occasionally brushing his fingertips over this flower or that flower, until finally he took a slender golden one in his hand, holding it reverently. “This one.”

Laurent’s brow furrowed. He looked taken aback, which was an expression Nikandros had never seen on his features before. “I cannot trade that,” he said, “I have it on a promise only and have not yet paid its price.”

Charls sighed, disappointment, laid it back on the coverlet and selected, in quick succession, four other flowers in its stead. 

Laurent’s lips thinned, when he saw the selection, but he just gave a quick, sharp nod. “Very well.” 

Once they were on the streets of the city again, Nikandros ventured to ask: “Why didn’t you give him that first flower? You could’ve paid one instead of four.” 

“They don’t all have the same worth,” Laurent said, almost absently, “much in the same way a daisy is not worth the same as a hothouse flower. And I was telling the truth. Even if I’d wanted to give it to him, I couldn’t have.”

“I thought you picked these yourself,” Nikandros said.

“I do.”

“But this one, you bought with a promise.”

“Damen picked it for me,” Laurent said, a small, almost quizzical smile on his face. “He chose it because it was beautiful, and he thought it matched my coloring.”

Nikandros suppressed his instinctive reaction, which was to balk at this details and change the subject, or let the conversation drop altogether, and thought about Laurent had just told him, albeit in a roundabout way. “So Damen chose it, simply because he liked it,” he said slowly, “and it was worth at the very least as much as four other flowers.”

“Apparently so,” Laurent murmured, and, almost to himself, “he’s full of surprises, isn’t he?”

***

“Stop that,” Orlant snapped.

Jord did not even have the grace to startle. He turned his head slowly, a half-distracted smile on his face. “Stop what?”

Orlant looked meaningfully in the direction of their leader, and then glared again at Jord. 

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Jord said, the utter piece of shit. 

“He means you should stop trying to stick your cock into Quality,” Lazar intervened. “If you care anything about keeping it attached to the rest of your body, that is.” 

Orlant did not much approve of Lazar, who was a sell-sword and a blackguard and loyal to the King besides - or rather loyal to the King’s money. But he found himself warmer towards him, in that moment, because Orlant was a fool who believed Jord might listen to reason, if it came from someone other than him.

It was not just that Aimeric was nobility, or rather _Quality_ , as Lazar had so charmingly put it, though that was bad enough on its own, or that he was loyal to the King, _truly_ loyal, the kind of loyalty that, unlike Lazar’s, could not be bought or bargained away.

Laurent loathed the man, for some reason Orlant could not fathom, and, frankly, did not care to know. Perhaps it was because he and Aimeric were close enough in age to have been friends, of a sort, before everything had gone to shit, and Laurent felt the betrayal more keenly from Aimeric for that. Or perhaps he reminded Laurent of what his life should’ve been, had it not been thrust in upheaval when he’d been so young. 

Whatever the reason was, the facts remained: the Prince was not the forgiving sort, and if he might tolerate the indiscretions of one of his agents with a member of his uncle’s court, he would not tolerate it if the member was Aimeric. 

Additionally, Jord was not the subtlest of men, and Orlant did not like their odds of success if he wound up warming Aimeric’s bed. It was too likely he’d let something slip, and then either they’d both get executed, or only Jord would. 

And in the latter case, Orlant would be left as the sole recipient of Laurent’s ire, on account of Jord’s head having ended up on a pike. 

He would have to change his name and move to Patras and become a goatherd, he reflected miserably, if he wanted any hope of surviving. 

“Don’t be absurd,” Jord said, very slowly and unconvincingly, not taking his eyes away from Aimeric’s figure. “I’m only looking.” 

Perhaps the goats wouldn’t be so bad. They’d certainly be smarter than the company he was currently keeping. 

Aimeric came stalking towards them, and Orlant knew a brief moment of panic. He wasn’t sure what he feared Aimeric would do - have Jord’s eyes plucked out for daring to look at him, or, even worse, invite him back to his tent. 

Aimeric did neither of those things. Instead, he gave a sharp jerk of his chin. “You three, come with me.” 

This seemed to imply, unless Aimeric intended to organize an impromptu orgy among his men, they would be doing something related to the search of the star. A welcome novelty, Orlant thought as he sprung to his feet. Aimeric had spent the past weeks leading them through a merry promenade across half the Akielon countryside, and, besides, half the men didn’t look like the could catch clap in a brothel, much less a star. 

Orlant had been starting to think that his efforts to infiltrate the expedition had been rather wasted, as this group seemed perfectly capable of sabotaging itself. 

They followed Aimeric out of camp, and rode across the flat countryside in a protective cluster around him, because apparently the idiot thought himself important enough that he ought to worry about assassins, even though this was a covert operation and no one should have even known they were there. 

He led them through a orchard to a squatting manor house, an ugly thing, maybe a few centuries old, its red bricks faded and dusty, where a sour-faced Akielon servant tried to turn them away at the door. 

“The master of the house if not expecting guests,” he repeated, putting himself bodily between them and the entrance of the house. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but Orlant did not think he could possibly believe he alone could keep the four of them from entering, if they decided to do so by force. 

“I do not have an appointment with the master of the house,” Aimeric replied, with palpable frustration. “I am here to see prince Kastor.”

“Prince Kastor has never graced us with his presence,” the servant lied, very badly.

Aimeric, who was holding the side of the door with one hand to keep the servant from slamming it shut, had, at the very least, enough intelligence to see through the obvious falsehood. His grip tightened, convulsively, until his knuckles were white, and his face grew very red. He did not speak, but, for some reason, the servant’s face went very pale, and he fled from them, leaving the door open and unprotected. 

They had barely stepped inside the shadowed entrance, that a high, cultured voice said, calmly: “I’ll thank you not to cause such disturbances in my father’s house.”

Orlant followed the source of the voice. There was a woman on the lowest step of the staircase, tall and arresting, with long golden hair that fell around her like a cloak. She stood across from them with her chin proudly raised and her eyes demurely downcast. 

She descended that final step, and came towards them, her skirts swaying. “He only offered aid to a daughter who asked it of him, and has no quarrel with you,” she continued softly. “You are looking for my husband, and neither my father nor his household know where he is.”

“You are the lady Jokaste, then?” Aimeric asked. He sounded hesitant. He had worked up his temper at the door, and now he didn’t know how to deal with her gentleness. 

“Yes,” she said, inclining her head to the side. “Kastor has left me here, knowing that you were coming, and that you might be displeased that he had disregarded your appointment.” A hint of rage crept into her tone, and she clenched her jaw. 

This had been Aimeric’s plan, Orlant realized, in bringing them to Akielos: ally himself with the bastard Akielon prince, who was also looking for the star but for completely different reasons. It was not a bad plan, all told. 

“Where has he gone?” Aimeric bit out. 

“The Patran prince, Torveld, has found the star,” Jokaste replied. “And he has offered the Power to Kastor.”

“So they’ve gone to Patras?”

“No. Torvel is here in Aegina. He was examining trade routes, when he found the star.” Aimeric jerked, and she held up a hand. “I will tell you where to find him, if you promise me one thing.” 

“Which is?”

She flicked her gaze up to them, for the first time, and Orlant almost recoiled. Her eyes were blue as a summer sky, and beautiful, but they were as cold as a viper’s. “That once you’ve found the star, and butchered it for your King’s convenience, or whatever else you mean to do with it,” she said calmly, “you will bring the Power to me.”

***

“Stand back,” Laurent ordered, once they were back at their makeshift camp in the woods outside Nesson-Eloy, “and keep your weapons at the ready.”

Nikandros traded a glance with Aktis, who angled himself protectively between Damen and Laurent. He went to Damen’s other side, and tugged him gently back with a hand on his elbow, until they had retreated a prudent distance away from the witch. Pallas, wide-eyed, hurried over to join them where they had clustered. 

Laurent unwound the cloth, draping it over the low-hanging branches until it hung from the trees like spider-silk, swaying gently in the breeze, and then he laid his hand on it, fingers splayed and closed his eyes. 

A soft, silvery mist shrouded him, although the day was warm and the sun high in the sky. Nikandros had not seen the fog descend. It was so very easy to feel as if it had always been there; the thought that it had not felt like river-water, slipping from Nikandros’ mind even as he tried to hold on to it. 

His gaze, too, slipped away from Laurent’s figure as soon as he stopped exerting a conscious effort to keep it there. He strained his eyes, and made himself look. The mist was growing denser, and darker, but there was light, gently pulsing at the heart of it, where Laurent’s hand lay. 

The birds ceased their chirping, so slowly that Nikandros did not even notice at first, until the oppressive silence made him turn his mind to the sounds of the forest. Then, the leaves stopped rustling, and the branches no longer snapped, until there was no sound left in the clearing save for the movement of small creatures through the underbrush, until that too quieted. 

The mist was almost black, now, and the light inside of it was cold as lightning, and a chill wind blew through the clearing, and that too was silent, and now Nikandros could not have torn his gaze away if he’d wanted to.

Eerie, graceful creatures moved through the mist, pale figures of gold and ivory and indigo, beautiful and remote. They raised their arms above their heads, and without looking at one another, grasped each other’s hands, and turned around each other, in slow, meandering circles. 

It was unlike any dance Nikandros had ever seen. There was no rhythm to it he could discern, only a sort of languorous abandon, and the feet of the dancers did not even seem to strike the earth, their movement fitting no predictable pattern. 

And yet, at the same time, it was so very clearly a dance, in the truest sense of the word, as though all the dances in the history of the world had been nothing but a garish attempt at imitating this subtle, ineffable grace. 

This was a dance as ancient as the night sky. 

_Stars_ , Nikandros realized. The dancers were stars. He took a step closer, swaying, as one who walks in dreams, his mind empty of all but the vague desire to touch them, and join them. 

And then, as the fog had come, it dissipated, and the dancers with it, fading away like dew with the light of dawn. Nikandros felt a deep pang, and tried, desperately, to hold on to the memory of them, and yet he could not, and it too slipped away like water between his fingertips. 

All that was left of the spell was the gossamer, hanging from the trees like a shroud, and Laurent, leaned, pale-faced and panting, against the trunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much I've you've read this far, and I've you've liked it, please consider leaving a comment!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr!](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com).


	6. Chapter 6

Kallias hovered half a pace behind his master. The day was warm, the sun high in the sky, but he felt cold, the unlit candle a heavy weight against his heart, hidden deeply in the folds of his chiton. They stood in a cobbled courtyard, in a garden, just him and Kastor and Torvel and a slave with hair like moonlight. 

And the star.

It had been close to a week since they’d arrived in Alalia, in the house Torveld was staying at for the duration of his visit to Aegina. They’d seen the star exactly once in that period of time, the day of their arrival. Then, the star had been a saffron-shrouded figure, delicate and graceful, features shielded from view and skirts hiked up to show the thick chain biting into the burnished skin of its thigh, and the stone that hung from it.

Kastor had extended his hands towards it, greed distorting his features, but Torveld had just smiled and waved to his attendants to lead the star away. What had followed, as far as Kallias had been able to gather, had been a long, extensive negotiation, pertaining to what concessions Akielos would allow Patras so that Torveld would give the Power to Kastor, rather than heed the whispers of Damianos’ return.

Kallias had spent those days making a shadow of himself, meek and cowering in front of his master’s displeasure. In secret, he’d scanned the halls, looking for a glimpse of the star. It would’ve been so much easier to reach forward and claim it before the exchange was to be held, before all eyes were focused on it. But he’d found nothing, caught no glimpse of anything that looked like the creature that had met them on the steps that first day. 

Seeing the star’s face, he realized that the reason for his failure did not lie in his inability to recognize the star, but rather in the fact that Torveld had guarded his treasure so jealously that he had not allowed it to roam the palace. 

At this point, he did not have much time left, or much of an opportunity. He’d have to show his hand and attempt to grab the star in full view of Kastor and Torveld - not to mention the slave. She looked too delicate to be a particularly formidable opponent, if she tried to fight him off, but it was possible she’d have the presence of mind to raise the alarm, and there were guards stationed just out of sight, but not out of earshot. 

She had been put in charge of serving refreshments, as though there were a good reason to drag this out even further. She cradled a jug of wine in her pale, graceful hands and bent first to fill Torveld’s goblet, then she walked across to Kastor’s seat, pouring him a glass of the dark, crimson wine as well. She moved with an hitch in her step, and favored her leg a little as she bent to pour the wine. Kastor did not seem to notice, as he turned to spare her an appreciative glance, but Kallias had to tamp down the urge to frown.

What was a defective slave doing, so closely in the retinue of a prince of the blood that she was attending to a royal guest, at an occasion such as this, at that?

He looked at her closely, dissimulating his gaze from beneath lowered lashes, as she returned to her spot behind Torveld’s chair. The star, too, turned its head to follow her movements, as she passed it by, something almost imperceptible flickering over its expression - there had to be some sort of connection between them, which explained her presence, though what that connection might be, Kallias could not even guess at.

But its existence made it, suddenly, harder not to think of the star as a person. Kallias swallowed against a curl of guilt, looking at it - at _him_ \- as he rose at Torveld’s gesture, face perfectly composed and eyes demurely lowered, and walked across to where Kastor was sitting. 

_It doesn’t matter_ , he told himself, _don’t lose your nerve now_. Soon, it would be too late, but he had not a way of grabbing the star and making it to an open flame before they were captured again and, presumably, summarily executed, at least in Kallias’ case. And if he could not light it, the Babylon candle was useless, nothing more than a lifeless lump of wax. 

Renouncing the attempt was tempting. He did not relish his life as Kastor’s slave, but it was sill preferable to death; had it not been, he would’ve already thrown himself off the white cliffs. But he had the feeling coming back, with the Power in Kastor’s hands, to a displeased Jokaste would lead to his death just as surely as taking his chance here and failing would; perhaps she would not reveal his involvement with Nikandros’ escape straight away, as she would need to explain how she’d come upon the knowledge, but he had little doubt she would find a way to make him pay for his failure. 

His only option would be to light the candle on their way back and attempt to survive his flight alone, with no money save what he could get by selling his cuffs and collar. 

The star had come to stand in front of Kastor, gathering the skirt of his tunic in one graceful hand and bunching them up, so that the Power was on display. Kastor grasped it firmly, fingers tracing the circumference of the star’s thigh, presumably looking for the clasp. The star allowed this for a moment, then he reached forward and laid a touch on Kastor’s wrist, stilling his movements. 

“What is it?” Kastor asked, his displeasure evident in his voice.

“I have to give this to the right person,” the star said. He raised his eyes, for the first time, surveying the courtyard, his gaze solemn and firm. His irises blazed solid gold, for a moment only, before their color muted to a soft, light brown, like warm honey. “You are that person. Ask the stone of me, and I will give it.”

Kastor straightened, and that was the moment when the bells started to ring.

“What’s happening?” Kastor demanded, as the star jolted backwards, startled.

“It’s the signal for the alarm,” Torveld replied, grimly. “Guards!”

For a long, tense moment, no one came. Then, in the sudden, unnerving quiet of the courtyard, there was the deep, thumping sound of booted feet upon stone and Kallias was relieved for half a breath. 

Then the source of the sound came into view. It was a small group of men - Kallias counted about fifteen - armed to the teeth and roughly dressed, in the Veretian style, their trousers and tunics speckled with blood and mud. They bore no insignia, but at their head was a young man, around Kallias’ own age, who had the air of refined prettiness that was typical of the aristocracy. 

“Who are you?” Torveld demanded. 

The youth inclined his head, just lightly, to the side. “Torveld of Patras,” he greeted, “we have no quarrel with you.”

“Interesting way of showing it,” Torveld said, “by slaughtering my guards and infiltrating my home.”

The youth pressed his lips together. “We would not have done so, had they not denied us entry. You’ll be compensated for the inconvenience, I assure you, as soon as your guest has given us what is owed.”

Kastor shot to his feet. “I owe you nothing, Veretian snake,” he snarled. 

“Deny our accords all you want,” the youth spat back, color rising high in his cheeks. “Our King has no love for traitors.” 

“I don’t think your King would support your actions,” Torveld said, “if he knew you’re threatening two princes of the blood.” 

“As I said, my quarrel does not lie with you,” the youth said, looking to Torveld with his jaw clenched. Looking at him, Kallias had the impression of a young, overeager wolf, straying too near to the hunters with his fangs bared. 

“And as I’ve said, I have trouble believing that,” was Torveld’s response. 

“We want to repay Kastor for his insult,” the youth said, sweeping his gaze over the courtyard, “and we want a star. As you have two, it would be in poor form to deny us. Otherwise…” he made a sweeping, expansive gesture, which seemed to encompass the whole of the situation, the missing guards, the alarm bells trailing off and his men with weapons bared. 

_Two_ , thought Kallias, as Torveld looked from the youth to the star with the honey-colored eyes, to the pale-haired slave who held the pitcher in her long-fingered hands. The star had seemed to know her. 

Torveld seemed to hesitate. Though what there was to hesitate for, Kallias couldn’t see - if the armed madman that had broken into the manor was willing to be civil and even pay for what he took instead of murdering them all, it seemed wise to humor him. 

Eventually, the prince nodded. “You may have her,” he said, gesturing to the female slave. “Though you will pay a fair price.” 

“No!” cried the star, wide-eyed, his trembling hands extended towards Torveld. “She’s my sister, she’s all the family I have left! You swore you’d protect us!”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Torveld said, moving as though to caress the star’s face, who flinched away from him, weeping. Kallias felt a brief pang of pity towards the creature - he’d evidently just discovered that masters did not care for their possession any more than it suited them to. 

The youth took a step towards them, and the cobbled floor cracked and splintered under his feet. He feel forward with a cry, catching himself on his hands. “Deuxième,” he panted, turning his gaze to an empty spot of the courtyard, flames dancing in his eyes, there and gone, so quickly Kallias wasn’t sure whether he’d imagined them. “I can tell you’re there. I’m not fifteen any longer, I can feel the reek of your magic.”

The air rippled. A young man stepped forwards, with golden hair and eyes like the sea. He held something clutched in his hand, a glass snowdrop, white and gleaming in the sunlight, chiming gently. “Aimeric,” he greeted, his voice cold, “you’ve grown no wiser since you were fifteen, I see, always my uncle’s rejected lapdog.” 

The youth’s - Aimeric’s - face distorted with fury. “And you’ve not changed, Deuxième, always a moment too late.”

Deuxième. That was the sort of name Veretian royalty used, naming their children by number because only one of them would live to be remembered, and that child would be king and not need a name at all. But there were no more Veretian royals, save their King. There had not been for ten years. 

“Am I?” the young man asked, blandly. Then, he added, “These days, I’m known by another name.”

“Ah, yes,” Aimeric spat, “ _Laurent_. Fitting, that you should discard the honor of your name, when you’ve rejected a royal bed in favor of a pigsty.”

Laurent’s lips curled. “I find the pigsty provides me with better bedmates.” 

Aimeric rose to his feet, pale with fury. Kallias half-expected him to launch himself bodily at Laurent. “Who are you with?” he asked. “I can tell you’ve a glamour still conjured. He’s taught me well.”

Laurent did not answer, did not even shift his position. He merely inclined his head, just slightly, to the side, arching one fair brow. 

He and Aimeric gazed at each other, for a long moment, across the expanse of the ruined courtyard. Then Aimeric raised his arm, his eyes blazing again like smoldering coals, a great swathe of fire pouring from his palm, his face, for a moment, losing all its loveliness, his features suddenly brittle and hollow.

Laurent made a brief, insouciant gesture with his wrist, as though swatting the flames away. The air behind him flickered again, revealing more figures, though Kallias paid them no mind - when Laurent had shielded himself, he’d not managed to extinguish the fire, so that it was spreading throughout the courtyard. 

He would not have another chance like this one. With one hand, Kallias grasped the star’s arm, firmly, while with the other, he took the candle from the folds of his chiton. He lit it in the spreading fire, ignoring the pain as it licked against his skin. Once the candle was burning, he started to walk forward, dragging the star behind him, the courtyard unraveling around them like an unspooled tapestry.

***

Laurent watched as the dark-haired slave and the star disappeared from the courtyard, there one moment and gone the next and had to suppress the urge to curse. Though, at least, it meant that Aimeric wouldn’t capture the star, either, and that Kastor wouldn’t walk away with the Power at the end of this day. He had more pressing concerns for the moment than the fleeing star, as Aimeric pressed the palm of his hand to the shattered ground and set rivers of fire pouring from it, crackling and contorting and reshaping themselves into fantastical shapes, lions and wolves and griffins.

Laurent raised his hands, one palm-up, the other clutched around the glass snowdrop, the flower so cold it burned against his skin. The barrier held, as the fiery creatures scrabbled and bit and clawed at it, but he wasn’t sure for how long, or whether it would hold for longer than Aimeric would - Aimeric, who was growing paler, his skin thin and yellowish, his eyes blazing like twins wheels of fire. 

What he was doing would kill him eventually, using this much magic so quickly, exerting so much destructive force. 

But before it did, it might very well kill them all, as well. Laurent gave up on the last of the glamour, to divert his energy to keeping up the shield. That left Damen exposed, as well as the dark, cold fog of the gossamer, hovering behind him and sucking at his magic - that, he’d have to maintain, unless he wanted them all to be stuck here. 

The broad-shouldered Akielon, whom Laurent would’ve been able to identify as Kastor on his resemblance to Damen alone, regardless of the lion pin gleaming against his shoulder, stepped forwards with a cry. “Hello, brother,” he said, looking at Damen with cold eyes. “Still alive, I see. You really can’t trust Veretians to get anything done properly,” he added, venomously, moving towards Aimeric with remarkable purpose for an unarmed man faced with a fire-wielding wizard. 

Laurent knew a brief flash of hope that Kastor would kill Aimeric, or, more likely, that Aimeric would kill Kastor, and that at least one of his problems would resolve itself, but Aimeric just carelessly moved his hand and Kastor was slammed backwards into the concrete, dazed but alive. And the fire-beasts were still coming, the barrier starting to crack under their relentless assault. 

Laurent swallowed. Priorities. Keep the remaining star from his uncle’s grasp. Get out of here alive. Keep Damen alive.

Keep Damen alive.

Swallowing down bile, he turned to Damen and summoned a power that had nestled within his blood, unused, for six years. He touched his fingers to Damen’s cheek, five briefs points of contact. “Listen to me,” he said, feeling the bond between catch and burn, the markings at Damen’s wrist lighting up an incandescent white. “Go back through the portal. If someone goes through it that is not me, or Nikandros, or Pallas, or Aktis, kill them and tear the gossamer down.”

Damen looked at him steadily, the blinding light at his wrist casting odd shadows on his face, so that he looked as though he had been carved from granite, his expression still. “Laurent,” he said, voice rough, as though it cost him to speak. He raised his shining hand between them, attempting to grasp Laurent’s, but he was helpless to resist the command, the rest of his body turning away even as he kept his fingers outstretched between them.

Laurent did not watch him go. He turned to his other companions, instead, who looked back at him warily. “We need to keep Aimeric from getting the other star,” he said.

“Why should we?” challenged Nikandros. “She does not have the Power.”

“The heart of a living star,” Laurent replied, voice steady even though the rest of him trembled, shaking with fatigue at the relentless drag on his magic of shield and spell and command, “will grant whoever consumes it immortality and powers beyond all reckoning. Is that the sort of thing you’d like the King of Vere to have?”

Nikandros pressed his lips together and did not answer, which was answer enough. “I’ll hold Aimeric off,” Laurent continued. “You find her.” He could not see her any longer among the roaring inferno of the courtyard, but she’d been walking with a limp - he doubted she could’ve gone far. 

The barrier was starting to splinter, by then, the heat of the fires creeping through the fissures. Laurent tightened his hold on the flower in his hand, convulsively. 

He knew what he had to do. 

He crushed it against his palm, until it cracked and broke, shards of glass lodging deep in his flesh, power coursing through him, so sudden it made his head swim. 

He would pay for this, when it was through. 

But for the moment, he had the strength to step forward, frost spreading outwards where his feet touched the ground, dispelling Aimeric’s summons and forcing the fire back. “Go!” he ordered. 

Aimeric bared his teeth, small and pearly white, out of place against his ravaged features, a vestige of the boy he’d once been. The fire surged forward again, but Laurent was prepared to meet it, the glass in his flesh freezing colder, sending waves of pain and torrents of power coursing up his arm, into his chest. His magic grappled Aimeric’s, as he attempted to wrest control of the fire from him.

He succeeded, for only a moment, the flames descending upon Aimeric, before he managed to regain enough control to extinguish the closest of them. 

They stood across from each other in the ravaged courtyard, wary, circling each other like wolves.

Laurent raised his hand.

***

Lykaios pressed her fingers against the door to the courtyard, pushing outward, her breath coming in sharp, panicked gasps.

There was fire, roaring, somewhere behind her. Her leg throbbed, an awful, bone-deep ache. Her wrist, too hurt, the skin there reddened and blistered - one of Aimeric’s soldiers had come upon her, walking through the flames, and she’d defended herself by pouring the wine in the jug she still held over the fire. The flare had caught against her arm. She could still smell the scorching flesh, could hear, still, the screams as she crawled away from the burning soldier. 

She’d have scars, on her arm, like Erasmus had on his thigh, she thought. And then she had to swallow a fit of hysterical laughter. Her wrist wouldn’t scar.

The doors to the courtyard had been melted shut. She would die here. 

She looked down at the jug still clutched in her hand. It was heavy, solid gold all the way through and it could presumably do some damage if she swung it against a man’s temple. But how many men would she be able to bring down, even so? And what options did she have? There were two witches and one of them would have her, in the end. 

She let the jug clatter to the ground, turning her gaze from the doors to the corpses of the guards, spilled like so much waste on the blood-slick cobblestones. One of them was close to her foot, his head turned towards her, glassy eyes fixed forwards. He was young, his beard still patchy on his chin.

She knelt beside him, swallowing her revulsion. She did not look at the hole in his chest, where the life had run out of him, focusing instead on the half-unsheathed sword he clutched in his hand. 

She put her fingers over his. They were still warm, though the grip was unyielding, and that seemed even more awful, somehow. It took effort, to prise the sword from his hand; at one point, she thought she heard the snap of bones breaking. But, eventually, she held the weapon in her grip.

She was not sure how to use it. It was long and heavy, cumbersome and unfamiliar in her hands. She tried to angle it against her own neck, but she was shaking too much for that. She gripped it with her left hand, as well, holding the blade steady so that she could lay it against her own throat. 

It should have been easy, at that point. She’d seen it done often enough, observing from above the viciousness and violence of mortals. It was just one little push, the metal parting the skin. And then it’d be over. They wouldn’t have her, not in any way that counted - they needed her alive, her heart still her own for there to be any worth to it. But if she were to die, her heart would belong to death only. 

Still, her hands trembled and wouldn’t move. _Do it_ , she thought, vicious and terrified, _do it, you coward._

Then, it was too late. Fingers clamped down on both her wrist. Her vision went white, and she screamed, dropping the sword. When she came to, her head spinning, there was the wetness of blood running down her neck, not nearly enough for it to be lethal. One of Aimeric’s soldiers held her in his grasp, attempting to drag her to his feet. 

She struggled, kicking at him and, when he came close enough, sinking her teeth into his arm, as hard as as she could, until she felt the skin break, the sharp tang of blood flooding her mouth. He shook his arm, trying to dislodge her. 

She let him go and was thrown onto the cobblestones, where she lay, her head ringing. She could not bear to open her eyes. If she was lucky, she’d enraged him enough that he’d kill her, orders and consequences be damned. 

She did not know how much time passed. But when a touch came, on her uninjured wrist, it was gentle. She startled, opening her eyes. 

There was another mortal soldier standing over her. She peered around him, to see her assailant lying in a pool of his own blood, his throat slit. 

“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” the soldier said, “I mean you no harm. Can you stand?”

“So that you can hand me over to your leader at your leisure?” she spat, but she could feel the truth of it sealing over her heart, an obligation snapping into place. This man had saved her life. She’d have to follow him to the ends of the earth, until he deemed the debt repaid. 

“Aimeric is not my leader,” he said, softly, “And I’ll stand between you and Laurent, should he attempt to harm you. But he won’t, I’m sure.” 

_Laurent._ So it was the blond witch he followed. “He’s a witch. There’s only one thing he could want from a star, and it would not be pleasant for me to give it to him.”

“He’s a good man,” the soldier replied, heat seeping into his voice. “If you don’t trust me, you’re welcome to take your chances with Aimeric.”

Sighing, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet - it was not as though she had much choice. She wouldn’t have had much choice even if the alternative were not the fire-wielding witch or the prince who’d enslaved her. The soldier offered her his arm, and together, they took the first, painful steps towards the heart of the courtyard.

***

They went barely five paces before the were met with the business end of a sword.

“Lazar,” Orlant said. 

“I saw you kill Jehan,” Lazar replied. His hand shook, very slightly, so that the tip of the blade undulated from Orlant to the star. “Why?”

Orlant sighed. “Why do you think?”

“You’re a traitor.” 

“Yes.” He could feel how tense the star was, where she leaned against him. “I work for Laurent.” 

Lazar exhaled noisily. He’d not made any move to attack them, beyond his unsheathed sword. “What is it about her,” he asked, nodding to the star, “that makes them all want her so much?”

“They want to kill me,” the star said, harshly. “Or, not just kill me. They want to tear the still-beating heart from my chest and eat it raw.” 

Lazar paled. He looked as though he was going say something, when the courtyard was flooded with white light, the air suddenly thick with the scent of ozone. When the brightness dissipated, Orlant risked a glance at Laurent, taking his eyes off of Lazar, even though he knew it was foolish - Laurent could take care of himself well enough and Orlant would have been better off trying to help himself.

Once he’d caught a glimpse of the prince across the blackened courtyard, he turned his attention back to Lazar, half-expecting to find his blade now pressed against his throat. But Lazar was not looking at him, his gaze instead fixed in Laurent’s direction. At length, he turned back to face Orlant the movement slow, almost languid, something indecipherable in the lines of his face. “Is he really one of the dead princes?” 

“Yes.”

“And you work for him.”

“Yes,” Orlant repeated, vaguely exasperated now. 

“Could he pay me? If I came with you?” 

“Could the exiled prince fleeing from his nation pay you,” Orlant said, his voice too flat for it to be a question. 

“What’s his plan? Does he want the throne?” 

“He wants it for his brother, yes,” Orlant replied, tense. He wasn’t sure how long they had left before someone else loyal to Aimeric came upon them, or until Torveld’s surviving men managed to break into the courtyard. 

“Could he pay me then?” 

“Yes,” Orlant said, through gritted teeth. “I suppose he could.”

“Wonderful,” Lazar said, lowering his sword, “I’m coming with you.”

Orlant thought briefly to question it. Then, he very quickly decided that this was something that could be dealt with later, ideally when Lazar was outnumbered by the rest of Laurent’s allies and they were standing in a place that was not fire. 

The star, it seemed, did not share this view. When he tried to start walking again, she dug her heels into the ground. “Why?” she demanded. 

Lazar shrugged. “I might be a sell-sword, but I still draw the line at murdering a defenseless woman.”

“But you had to ensure you were getting paid before you decided that?” she asked. She still sounded suspicious, but, at least, she started moving when Orlant tugged on her arm. 

“I have to put food on the table somehow. I’ve people depending on me.” 

“You’re a bachelor,” Orlant pointed out. “And you’ve said your parents were dead.” It had started raining; thick, cold drops that extinguished the last of the fires. The rain mixed with the blood and ash on the cobblestone, making everything slippery. 

“I meant me,” Lazar replied, managing to sound almost jovial as he skirted a corpse; one of Laurent’s Akielon allies, his body slit open from throat to navel. “I have me depending on me.”

There were shouts, coming from the other side of the gardens. Torveld’s men had to have finally broken through - they’d be upon them soon. Aimeric was on his side on the cobblestones, not unconscious but clearly weak, his features restored to their usual loveliness, though he still looked pale. Three of the men, including Jord, were attempting to help him get to his feet. 

Between them and Orlant, there was a charred body. It would’ve been unidentifiable, had it not been for the melted bit of gold stuck to its shoulder and the scrap of crimson cape that had, somehow, survived whatever had ravaged its owner. 

Prince Kastor of Akielos was dead.

Beyond him and beyond Aimeric, was Laurent. He stood preternaturally still, one of his hands bleeding so heavily it had made a small puddle at his feet, that was only now being washed away by the rain. His eyes gleamed; a cold, hard light. 

Orlant hurried over to him, but was stopped by the remaining two Akielon warriors, who met him with bared swords. 

“Let him through,” Laurent said. His voice sounded remote and - wrong, somehow. It was not quite toneless, but rather as though Laurent had forgotten how to modulate his words properly and was trying to recreate his usual cadence as best as he could and still failing. “We have to go,” he added, sounding marginally more himself. 

“But Aktis-“ said the younger of the warriors. 

“Your friend’s dead,” Lazar said, “I’m sorry.” He sounded it, too, surprisingly enough. 

“We can’t just leave his body,” the young warrior insisted, turning beseeching eyes to his older companion. 

“No,” Laurent said, firmly. He was growing paler, the blood falling in a steady course from his palm, now, though he was looking more and more human with every passing moment. “There’s no time left.” 

“What do we have to do?” Orlant asked. 

Laurent gestured to the thick, dark fog that still hung, somehow, just beyond his shoulder. He swayed, as though the gesture had cost him. “Clear your mind, and step through.”

“You have to go first,” the older Akielon warrior said to Laurent. “You’ve told Damen to kill whoever steps through that’s not one of us. You have to end the compulsion.”

Laurent nodded, shakily. He walked through the fog, and disappeared. 

After a few moments had passed, the Akielon nodded to his younger companion. “Pallas, you next.”

After Pallas, too had disappeared, the man gestured to Orlant. “After you three,” he said. “Go one after the other. I don’t know what happens if more than one person tries to step through at once.”

Orlant nodded. The star lifted her hand from his arm, leaning on Lazar instead. 

He walked forwards, into the fog. It was cold, and dense, and dark, and he kept walking and didn’t emerge from it, though he hadn’t judged it to be more than a few feet thick when he’d looked at it in the courtyard. 

He didn’t know how long he spent in the oppressing darkness, moving, unseeing, through it. Eventually, the fog grew paler, until it became so bright it hurt his eyes to keep them open. 

And then he was stepping out, into the sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much if you've read this far, and I've you've liked it, please consider leaving a comment!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr!](https://thestoriesthatweweave.tumblr.com).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the "canon warnings apply" note, for this one, especially towards the end of the chapter.

Damen, not for the first time, tried to walk the distance separating him from the gauzy bit of gossamer stretched out among the branches of the threes. And, not for the first time, he stopped just short of touching it.

_Go back through the portal. If someone goes through it that is not me, or Nikandros, or Pallas, or Aktis, kill them and tear the gossamer down._

He could not do anything else than that, so long as the compulsion held. Just beyond the flimsy scrap of fabric, his friends were fighting, his brother and his lover were facing each other across shattered cobblestones, and he was stuck in this clearing. There was nothing he could do to help. Yet, there was some twisted measured of comfort to be found in walking the steps and being stopped a handspan from the gossamer. It meant that the compulsion held. 

It meant that Laurent lived.

He dared not turn his back to the gossamer, so he retreated walking backwards, one of his hands still wrapped around the hilt of unsheathed sword - battle was being waged on the other side, and one of his enemies might cross at any moment. 

But no one came. 

Not Laurent, nor Nikandros. Not his brother, not the star. 

He saw, again and again, in the back of his mind, the ripple of fire across the courtyard. A tangled mop of curls and, face, twisting and morphing, going from child to man and back again. He saw a shadowed canopy of trees above his head and wide, frightened green eyes and felt his arm throb with a phantom ache, as it had when the binding spell had first been etched into his flesh. 

Then, the silk rippled, parting like a curtain of mist to show a glimpse of the dim world beyond. Laurent walked through, panting and bloodied. 

“The others are coming,” he said, stepping up to Damen. Up close, his skin was so pale it was nearly translucent, stretched tight and paper-fine over the sharp juts of his cheekbones. His eyes shone, as though he were in the grips of a fever. He pressed one hand to Damen’s wrist, over the blazing mark of enchantment. His palm was wet, awfully wet. “We have gained a few traveling companions, though not the ones we were hoping for.” 

“Alright,” Damen said, trying to be soothing as he attempted to dislodge Laurent’s hand on him, so that he could look at the state of it. Laurent held on fast, though his grip was slippery. 

His blood had started to run down Damen’s arm. 

“You may disregard my previous orders,” he said. 

Something ruptured, deep inside Damen’s chest, as the compulsion faded. He ripped his arm from Laurent’s grip, mindless of the pained half-cry that escaped him as his injured hand was jostled. The rest of his companions were stepping through the gossamer, but Damen paid them no mind.

“ _How could you_ -“ he seethed.

“I’m sorry,” Laurent choked out. He had fallen to his knees, when Damen had pushed him away, and had not righted himself. Something cold and sharp glittered, nestled in the ruin of his palm. 

“Laurent,” Damen said. “What did you do?” 

“Forgive me,” Laurent replied, no longer looking at Damen. He was trying to prise something out of his injury, his brows pinched in concentration and his face growing paler by the moment. 

“Nikandros!” Damen called. “Water. Get me water.”

When Nikandros made no move to do so, rooted to the spot with wide shocked eyes, Damen sprinted over to their packs and grabbed a flask. A quick sniff identified it as wine, rather than water. Just as well. Maybe even better, he amended, thinking of the shredded skin of Laurent’s palm -infection was just as ruthless a killer as magic. 

He knelt down next to Laurent, grabbing his wrist and forcing him to turn his hand over, so that his palm was exposed to Damen’s scrutiny. 

It was glass, the thing embedded in the cut. Damen pulled out a shard, cleaning it of the crimson blood to reveal the milky white color of it. “You fucking idiot,” he hissed, pulling as many big shards free as he could, before he doused Laurent’s hand in wine and washed the small ones out. “I’m already angry enough with you as it is, don’t you dare die on me, as well.”

Laurent did not reply, curving his back to rest his forehead on Damen’s shoulder, weak and shuddering. Damen knew the moment when the last of the glass was washed away, because he felt Laurent go boneless agains him, for a moment, then he seized up, curled his body away from Damen’s and retched. 

His vomit was dark and brackish, half blood and half something fouler. Damen held his hair away from his face as he shook and wept, though Laurent really didn’t deserve the courtesy, and caught him when he collapsed so that he didn’t fall in his own sick. 

It was typical of Laurent, Damen thought, sourly, as he smoothed a few stray golden tendrils from his forehead, to get himself this ill, so that Damen could not even be angry at him properly.

Laurent moaned, tossing his head. He had been cold to the touch, but he was steadily getting warmer under Damen’s hand, a flush coming to his cheeks. Still, he trembled, so badly that his teeth chattered, for all that he was half unconscious. 

Damen cursed. “Nikandros!” he called again. “Bring me blankets. And more water.” 

He wrapped Laurent in the blankets, and forced some water down his throat; Laurent was able to hold it down, which was reassuring. 

“What has happened to him?”

The voice was unfamiliar. Damen sought out its source, and found it belonged to a man of perhaps thirty years, tall and broad-shouldered. He was dark-haired, and possessed the type of roughly hewn features that were not handsome, but could still manage to be pleasing, in the right sort of light. 

_We have gained a few traveling companions_ , Laurent had said. 

“He has greatly overtaxed himself,” Damen replied. This was true, if something of an understatement. The glass flowers Laurent dealt in could allow a magician or witch to access the raw energy in Faerie’s core much more quickly than they otherwise could, and to channel a much greater amount of it, but they needed to be properly processed before they could be used. 

Otherwise, the price of using them was steep - a price Laurent was now paying in full. 

The man pressed his lips together, but said nothing. He had a woman with him, pale and fair - Damen recognized her, with a start, as the slave who had served his brother and Torveld in the courtyard. She stepped up to them and dropped down to her knees next to Laurent, grimacing. 

“He’s very weak,” she murmured, pressing the tip of a slender finger under Lauren’s chin, where his pulse fluttered underneath his skin.

“Yes,” Damen admitted. 

“He might die,” she went on, mildly. 

“He won’t.” 

“He may,” she insisted. She pressed down harder, the tip of one nail almost breaking the skin. In the rays of the dying sun, her white skin and golden hair almost seemed to glow, bright and unearthly. 

Laurent moaned again, half-opening his eyes. His body arched, subtly, towards her, and she pushed him down, firmly, with one hand splayed against his chest. Her eyes, too, seemed to burn, for half a moment. 

Damen wanted to push her away from Laurent, but found that he could not bring himself to do so. He watched, transfixed, as she withdrew her hands and stood. 

She swayed, a little, going pale and grimacing with pain. “This thrice damned leg,” she said. “I keep forgetting about it.” She did not look unearthly any longer, did not shine or glitter or catch and burn. She looked like any maiden Damen had seen - a beautiful one, perhaps, but a maiden nonetheless. Nothing more. 

Damen followed her movements with his gaze as she limped back to the rest of their companions, clustered in a loose knot around the tattered remains of the gossamer. Laurent shifted against him, restless. 

He looked better, Damen thought, pressing the back of his hand to his brow, again. He was trying to discern whether or not he felt slightly cooler to the touch, as well, when his gaze on an empty spot in the clearing.

“Where’s Aktis?

***

They tumbled into the clearing, swaying. The candle fell from the slave’s hand and rolled into the grass, guttering, and extinguished itself, reduced to an uneven lump of wax.

Erasmus ripped himself from the slave’s grip, which had grown lax - with exhaustion or with astonishment, he couldn’t tell - and whirled to face him. “Take me back.” 

“What?”

“Take. Me. Back.” Erasmus repeated. He felt, quite suddenly, as though his spirit were too small for his body, his skin stretched out taut over his bones, every nerve flaring and catching and burning, all at once. 

He’d never been angry, before that moment. 

He hadn’t seen the point of it. Anger wasn’t meant for people like him; it was meant for those who could turn into a blade, those who could demand reparations and see them delivered. All people like him could do was carve a space out for themselves, build a little corner of peace, and make themselves small enough that no one would be tempted to take it from them. And Erasmus had done everything _right_. He hadn’t asked for too much. He’d been grateful for every gift given. 

He’d only wanted to stay with his sister. 

The slave did not react. He was staring at Erasmus, pale and stunned, his dark blue eyes clouded with something Erasmus couldn’t place.

“My sister needs help,” Erasmus said. Perhaps he should have made it sound beseeching, perhaps he ought to have gotten down on his knees and begged. But he had no patience for it, not now. Not anymore. _He doesn’t deserve your submission_ , he thought, and found himself smiling a little, entirely despite himself, something brittle and wry rising in his core, setting seed there. How fitting that he found himself agreeing with his sister only once he’d lost her. 

“There’s nothing I can do about that,” the slave said. He spoke slowly; almost without inflection, but his voice still trembled, just a little, beneath the mask of indifference.

“You have taken me from there,” Erasmus insisted. “You have to know how to reverse it.” 

“I don’t!” The slave gestured to the melted candle on the ground, and Erasmus caught sight of his hand for the first time, red and swollen and covered in boils. Doubtlessly, it would scar. “We’d need another one of these.” 

“Good,” Erasmus said. “Then let us get one.” 

“It’s not that simple. They’re precious. They’re very rare”

“You’re a slave,” Erasmus pointed out, “How did you get one in the first place, if they’re so rare?” 

“Someone gave it to me.” 

“Why?” 

“Does it matter? It doesn’t help your sister.” 

Erasmus bit back a sigh. “I suppose it doesn’t,” he conceded. The fire of his rage was fading, as sudden as it’d come - it left him feeling cold, grasping at its ashes. Lykaios was far from him. How far, he did not know, but he could never reach her before the danger she was in was past. 

“We should find shelter,” the slave said. 

Some small, defiant part of Erasmus wanted to challenge that. _We_? he wanted to ask, _what makes you assume I’ll come with you?_. The rest of him was too heartsick and weary to even suggest them parting ways, to even imagine making his way alone through the unfamiliar landscape. “We should find a doctor to look at your hand,” he said, instead. 

The slave smiled, just a little. Or rather, the side of his mouth quirked up, as though he couldn’t muster the energy to manage an entire smile. “What do you know of the injuries of humans, star?”

“My name is Erasmus,” Erasmus said, on reflex, a small flash of annoyance flaring beneath his skin. “And I know enough. For instance, I know they can get infected if they’re not properly treated.” 

“Kallias,” the slave said. 

Erasmus said nothing, tilting his head to the side in question.

“My name,” the slave said, “it’s Kallias. And you’re right about infection, but this is not such a bad wound, and for now we have more pressing problems.” 

“Witches?” Erasmus ventured. 

Kallias shook his head. “Slavers,” he said. “I’m not sure where we are. I walked us north, so we’re either in the south of Vere or the north of Akielos, but in either case we need to find a blacksmith to remove our cuffs and collars, and then we need to make ourselves scarce before someone thinks of making a sol or two off of bringing us back to our masters.” 

“Remove the cuffs?” Erasmus asked, pressing one hand to his wrist, feeling the cold bite of the metal into his flesh. The cuffs meant security. They meant he was Torveld’s, so that no one else would dare touch him, or try to carve out his heart and devour it whole. 

“Of course,” Kallias said, looking at him side-long. “Where else did you think this was going? We’ve escaped. I don’t ever intend on going back, and you shouldn’t, either.” 

“Why not?” Erasmus said. “Torveld loves me,” he added, but the words sounded feeble to his own ears. 

“Torveld tried to sell off your sister the moment it was convenient to him,” Kallias retorted, sharply. “He’ll care about you until the novelty of you wears off, and then he’ll relegate you to his harem and only spare a though for you once a fortnight. Until he truly grows bored with you, of course, and then he’ll sell you to the highest bidder. Or he’ll just take to lending you out as a favor to his friends.” 

“Torveld isn’t like that.” This time, the words sounded stronger. Torveld was a good man. He’d promised to stand by Erasmus, and the promise of a prince had to be worth something. 

He’d also promised to help Lykaios. 

Kallias smiled, something ugly and twisted at the edges of it. “They’re all like that. Trust me. I’ve been at this game longer than you’ve been on earth.”

***

The first thing he was aware of was the light, pulsing white and blinding, just beyond his closed eyelids. Other sensations followed; the hard-packed ground beneath his bed, the warm furs drawn up to his chin, the sweaty, matted tangle of his hair against his forehead.

He blinked his eyes open. He could see nothing at first, then the space slowly came into focus. There was the slanted side of a tent above his head, the dappled sunlight filtering through the opening. Damen, sitting cross-legged and hunched over at his side, making himself small because his frame could not comfortably fit into the confines of the tent. 

“How long was I out?” Laurent asked. His voice was a scrape.

Something flickered over Damen’s expression. His face was hard, immovable; as if carved from stone, his mouth tight and his eyes shadowed. “Three days.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Damen asked. “Whatever for?” 

Laurent opened his mouth, but found that, for once in his life, words wouldn’t come. A chasm was opening up between them, cold and dark and fathomless, and there was no way to diffuse the situation, none that he could see. “Everything,” he rasped out, eventually. 

Damen’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think you are. You’re just sorry you’ll have to face the consequences of your actions.” 

Laurent said nothing, not for a very long time. He watched Damen across the tent, feeling the distance between them stretch and stretch and stretch. “I did not want you to die,” he said, desperately, “is that so bad?” 

“My friend is dead,” Damen said. His voice shook, with anger or with pain or with something else entirely. “You broke your promise. You lied to me.” 

“I never meant to lie to you.” 

Damen did not reply. 

“I never meant to break my promise. I wasn’t lying to you, when I made it.”

“Not about that,” Damen said. 

Fuck. Laurent had been so preoccupied with the binding spell and the compulsion, he’d not ever stopped to consider what else Damen had encountered in the courtyard. What he might’ve remembered. 

“About Aimeric.” 

Laurent swallowed. The truth was, he’d not thought about it, not really, for years. He’d been eager to put that night far from his mind, to distance what he and Damen had from the circumstances of their meeting.

“Your uncle could not move against you, not directly,” Damen said. He was talking self-assuredly, his voice firm, like he’d been giving the matter a great deal of thought while Laurent had been unconscious. Presumably, he had. 

“Yes.”

“My brother wanted to be rid of me. Aimeric works for your uncle.” 

“Yes.”

“Aimeric was there that night,” Damen said. 

Laurent closed his eyes. “Yes.” 

“Aimeric was the one who laid the beginning of the binding spell,” Damen went on. “He set me on your path.”

“I didn’t know who you were,” Laurent said. He drew the furs closer around himself, feeling suddenly very cold. “Aimeric was my friend, once. He begged me to help you, to help him. I believed him, because I was a child, still. Too weak and too foolish to anticipate another betrayal.” It was the truth. Saying it felt like skewering himself on a knife. 

“You knew, once I woke up,” Damen pressed, “Once I told you my identity. You knew it had been a trap.” 

“My uncle only needed to let something slip in Akielos. To let murmurs reach the ears of your friend, Nikandros, who never trusted your brother. Theomedes or Nikandros would find us. Afterwards, it was only a matter of time until they learned the quickest way to free you, and then my life would’ve been forfeit.” 

“You needed me to like you,” Damen said, “so that I would stand as a shield between you and those who loved me.” 

“It grew less and less deliberate every day,” Laurent said, and this, too, was the truth. “You were brave and honorable and smart and I-“

“You could’ve told me,” Damen said. “At any point in the past six years, you could’ve told me. I loved you. I wouldn’t have cared about the initial deception.” 

“Loved?” Laurent choked out.

For the first time, something that wasn’t fury or grief passed over Damen’s features. “Love,” he amended. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Do you want to leave me?” Laurent asked. He hated how his own voice sounded - thin, broken, beseeching. 

Damen was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know,” he admitted, running a weary hand over his face. “I don’t know how to feel when I look at you, anymore.” 

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“Sometimes, that’s not enough,” Damen said. His voice was gentle. Laurent would’ve preferred it if he’d shouted. “This was so unbelievably selfish, Laurent. You lied to me because you couldn’t bear to risk dealing with the fallout. You coerced me with your magic because you didn’t want me to risk my life, with no thoughts to what I wanted.”

“I said I was sorry,” Laurent said. He wanted to weep. He wanted to throw himself at Damen’s feet and beg. He wanted his brother, who’d embrace him and kiss his hair, who wouldn’t judge him and would promise that everything would be alright. “What more do you want? I cannot undo what I’ve done.” 

“I want to be sure you won’t do it again, moving forward.”

“I won’t. I promise you, I won’t.” 

Damen’s face hardened. “I think we’ve both learned just how much your promises are worth.” 

“That’s unfair.”

“Is it?” Damen asked. “There were to be no lies between us. Is Aimeric even the only secret you’ve kept?”

“Yes,” Laurent said, too quickly; the lie tasted like ash on his tongue. _He would not turn you away,_ Auguste had said, and Laurent wished so dearly to believe it. But he could not risk it, not then, not as the ties between them stretched so thin.

Damen’s mouth twisted. “I think I finally know you enough that I can tell when you’re lying, Laurent.” 

Laurent dozed, after Damen left, curled up on his side, sick and aching. His dreams were vague visions. He dreamt of the stars - not the two who had tumbled down to earth, but their brethren who shone in the heavens. They danced, quiet and precise and remote, looking down at the mortals below, who bled and wept and aged and died, and there was no emotion on their beautiful features, no pity and no scorn. 

He woke when someone pushed the flap and entered the tent; for a moment, it was only a broad-shouldered figure, silhouetted against the setting sun. Laurent’s eyes caught a loose, dark curl against a sharp cheekbone, and his heart gave a jolt. Then Nikandros stepped fully into the tent, letting the flap fall closed at his back, until there was just enough sunlight filtering in to see by.

“Come to gloat?” Laurent asked.

Nikandros’ mouth twisted, as though he had tasted something sour, which was to be expected, but he shook his head, which was not. “I was wrong about you.”

“Oh?” Laurent prompted. 

“I was also right,” Nikandros added, which did nothing to clarify his point, really. “You are a conniving snake. But I thought you didn’t care about him, and I was wrong about that.”

“What tipped you off?” Laurent asked. He craned his neck so that he was looking at Nikandros’ eyes as he spoke, but couldn’t muster enough energy to do anything more than that. 

“You sent him away,” Nikandros said. “I’ve tried to work out any possible angle you could’ve had. You had nothing to gain from it, and everything to lose. I saw how close you came to death, in that fight. A warrior like Damen would have tipped the scales in your favor.” 

“Everything to lose,” Laurent said. “Except him.” 

“You might’ve lost him, either way,” Nikandros said. His words were blunt, and he did not sound particularly sorry, but just a week before he would’ve sounded pleased. 

“It’s better than the alternative,” Laurent replied, and let himself fall back onto the cushion. He closed his eyes, waiting for the sound of Nikandros’ retreating footsteps, but it did not come. He opened his eyes. “What?”

“Deuxième,” Nikandros said. “Interesting name. Fit for a prince.” 

“No one calls me that, anymore. No one has for a very long time.” 

“I suppose they wouldn’t. I wasn’t aware there were any Veretian princes still kicking around, just the King.”

Laurent gritted his teeth, and said nothing. 

“And you seem awfully close to your brother, for your lot.” 

Laurent snorted. “If the past few days have taught us anything, it’s that fratricide is a vice in any royal family.” 

Nikandros was quiet for some time. “Perhaps,” he conceded, eventually, “though Kastor is hardly representative of Akeilos. But you Veretians have made it into an art.”

“It’s practical,” Laurent said. “We win our thrones and secure our succession from uprisings in one move. It’s the same reason we don’t have bastards, when Akielons seem to regard them as an interesting challenge to add to the bloodline.” 

“And yet, you don’t seem to be planning to kill your brother,” Nikandros pointed out.

“No,” Laurent admitted. “When I was born, Auguste decided to do the unthinkable: he loved me. And believed that, if he loved me, I would love him as well, and there would be no need for either of us to harm the other. He wanted to change things.”

“And did he? Change things?” 

“For a while, he did.” His father and his uncle had embraced in the carpeted halls, and sworn loyalty to each other, declaring the youngest princes of Vere and their devotion to each other a standard to be followed. If he closed his eyes, he could recall the leaping flames in the fireplace, smell the roasting meats and taste, at the back of his throat, the rich, thick flavor of the red wine he’d been allowed to sip. “Until one night, my uncle had the entire royal family murdered in their beds.” 

“Except you,” Nikandros said. _You and your brother_ , he clearly meant. 

Laurent smiled, small and bitter and twisted. “Except me,” he agreed, “but I wasn’t in my bed, when it happened.”

“And where were you?”

Laurent shrugged, as much as he could when lying down. “I was restless child,” he answered, “and had taken to wandering the halls. I noticed the commotion and ran to get my brother.” 

“That was lucky,” Nikandros said, at length. He sounded dubious, as well as he might - the lie Laurent had fed him was well-practiced, honed to smoothness after years and years of its telling and retelling, but it had felt more hollow than usual, saying the words. 

“Wasn’t it?” he asked, with levity he did not feel.

***

The small cluster of houses could hardly be termed a village, but, in Kallias’ admittedly limited experience, any place that more than ten people called home offered the services of at least a blacksmith and a whore, for men anywhere needed their knives forged and their pricks stroked.

It was night, when they reached it, just barely fallen. They’d walked for hours through the dimly lit wood, picking a direction at random because neither he nor the star knew the location. They crept through the shadowed streets, conspicuous in their flimsy clothing and shimmering bonds. 

They reached the forge just as the smith was exiting it, which was fortunate. Otherwise, they’d have been forced to wait till morning, or go looking for him and risk attracting far more attention that what was wise. “Good evening,” Kallias called, stepping into the puddle of light pouring from the forge’s open door. The star followed him closely, tense as a whipcord. 

The smith cocked his head to the side to peer at them through narrowed eyes. “Can’t say I’ve seen many people like you around these parts.” 

Kallias smiled, just a small, lazy tip of his lips that did not show his teeth. “We have need of your services.” 

The blacksmith looked at him, from the planes of his face down the thin juts of his collarbones, something sharp and hungry in his gaze. For the gold, or for the chance to sample a rich man’s slave, or both. “I can see that,” he said. “I don’t want trouble.” 

He meant, _convince me_.

“You won’t have any,” Kallias assured, pitching his voice low and smooth as glass, “We’ll be gone before morning. And you’ll be well recompensed for having to work during the night.”

The side of the smith’s mouth twitched. Kallias stepped closer, so that the firelight from inside the forge caught and danced over the gold at his neck. _I have you, now_ , he thought, as the smith half-swayed towards him, transfixed by what was possibly the greatest treasure he had ever laid eyes on. He put a finger against the side of Kallias’ collar, where it was closest to the pulse that beat beneath his skin. His hand was rough, thick with callouses. 

“I want half of the gold,” he said. “And I want a night with your friend.” 

The star gasped. When Kallias glanced back at him, he’d retreated from the pool of light, until he was almost entirely in the shadows, only his wide, frightened eyes clearly visible. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have me?” Kallias asked, almost on instinct. He’d bear it better than this wan, frightened creature ever could, in any case. 

The smith shook his head. “Nah,” he drawled, “he looks sweeter.”

Kallias looked back at the star, who trembled and paled and didn’t even have the strength to shake his head. He felt a stab of pity. _You don’t have a choice, you idiot_ , he thought, sourly, to himself and at himself, Make the trade and be glad it’s not you.

“You can’t have a night,” Kallias said. “We need to be going. But you can have an hour.” 

“Yes,” the smith said, so quickly that it was clear that Kallias had made a poor bargain. Perhaps he might’ve been willing to part with more of the gold, just to get his cock into something a rich man had touched. 

“You’ll remove our collars and cuffs, first,” Kallias added, “before collecting your payment.” 

The man’s face soured a little. “Half now,” he said, “half once I’m done.” 

“You will not have the focus to do your work,” Kallias replied, “once you’ve received half of your payment. Unbind us now, and let your eagerness make your task swift.” 

The blacksmith frowned, looking over Kallias’ shoulder at the star as though he was considering arguing further. “Fine,” he conceded, and went back into the forge. 

It was a shorter procedure that Kallias would’ve expected, getting the cuffs and collar removed. They’d been a part of him for so long, he half-felt the moment deserved some degree of ceremony, but it was simply a matter of prising them open and laying them on a bench to cool. It took slightly longer to do the star’s, because he trembled and shook and almost got burnt a few times. 

Once it was done, the blacksmith rose, taking off his leather apron and his gloves. “There’s a cot in the back,” he said, roughly, to the star. 

“Don’t you have a bed?” the star asked, tremulously, to which the blacksmith laughed.

“Sure. But the wife will not appreciate being kicked from it just so I can fuck someone prettier. Come on.” He shot a look at Kallias. “You can wait outside. Or here, it’s all the same to me.”

Kallias longed to go outside, so that he wouldn’t have to ear the noises, but he feared he would attract attention, lingering on the forge’s doorstep in the night. “I’ll stay.” 

“Suit yourself,” the blacksmith said. He walked to the back of the forge, bending to stoke a fire languishing in the grate. “I want enough light to see you by,” he added, smiling, to the star. 

Kallias turned his back to them, closing his eyes. It was to be a long hour, he supposed, and it would only be made longer if he had to watch them as well as listen to them. Behind him, the noises were wet. Kissing, he supposed. Then, there was the rustle of fabric, a low groan; something that sounded like a gulp, or a suppressed sob. 

Despite his best judgement, Kallias glanced at the pair. The blacksmith had stripped off his shirt, revealing a broad expanse of muscled, hairy shoulders, while the shift the star had been wearing had been pushed down his chest and was now tangled at his hips, probably held up by some kind of hidden string. He looked thin, in comparison to the smith, and small. Fragile, in the man’s grip, 

Perhaps, he sensed he was being watched, because he turned his head just enough, as the blacksmith mouthed at his neck, to look at Kallias, too terrified to even be beseeching, tears pooling in his eyes. Kallias immediately turned away, swallowing bile. 

His gaze fell on his unclasped collar, lying open on the table. Reaching out with his uninjured hand, he pressed the tip of his finger against the metal, to check whether or not it had cooled. 

It had.

Kallias took the collar more firmly into his grip, feeling its weight. It was heavier than what he’d felt it to be, as he’d worn it around his neck, the gold solid and thick, fit to mark the property of a prince. 

Erasmus sobbed again. 

Kallias’ hand tightened on the gold, tight enough that he could feel the metal bite into his palm. 

He turned, again, to look at the pair. They hadn’t even started, not really - Erasmus still had the scrap of fabric clinging to his hips, while the blacksmith still hadn’t unlaced his pants. Kallias looked back down to the gold in his fist. It was clear what the sensible choice was, here; the only choice, really. 

Instead, he stood, as silently as he could manage, and crept to the back of the shop with the collar clenched in his hand. He had years of practice walking unseen. The floorboards did not creak, as he passed over them and he angled his body so that it would not cast a shadow on the wall. The blacksmith was distracted, having started on the laces of his pants, which helped. 

Kallias adjusted his grip, focusing on the soft, unprotected spot at the man’s temple and struck. 

The blacksmith let go of Earmsus, rearing in surprise and pain, though he stayed on his feet - the gold may have been heavy, but Kallias was not a warrior, and did not know how to best angle a blow. The man slapped him across the face, a back-handed blow, which flooded his mouth with blood and sent his ears ringing. Kallias stumbled, catching himself against the wall with his injured hand and lashing forward with the opposite elbow, blindly.

It was pure luck that it connected. And it was either the best or the worst of luck that the blacksmith had been still dazed by Kallias’ blow, unsteady on his feet, that the fire was at his back, and the mantlepiece. He fell backwards, his head striking against the stone edges, and collapsed into the flames. 

Horribly, he did not die right away, but he did not have enough focus to pull himself to his feet, or to crawl out of the fire, or even to scream. 

Kallias looked at his face, as the fire ravaged it, even though he knew it was foolish, until a hand on his shoulder startled him. “Kallias,” Erasmus said, with wide eyes and trembling mouth. “ _Thank you._ ”

Don’t thank me, Kallias wanted to say, for he’d done nothing. “We have to go,” he replied, instead. “Quickly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much I've you've read this far, and I've you've liked it, please consider leaving a comment!


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